This is electro with its lineage intact and its eyes firmly ahead: studied, physical, detailed and properly funky. The lesson is simple. Know the form. Then push the production until the form starts pushing back.
The roots of electro remain completely visible
Committed electrologist Fleck E.S.C. brings his archetypal electro to legendary second-generation post-pioneer, pioneer ADJ’s Pyramid Transmissions for a full album workout as Interior Reset. What’s striking is how the roots of electro remain completely visible without ever collapsing into routine, lazy aesthetics or genre confirmation. These tracks are meticulously built, every texture and hi-hat seemingly calibrated to extract the maximum nuance from the intention.
“Interior Reset” is the proof. Broken-tech funk, breakery and serious synthesis craft merge into something that feels both timestamped and timeless. It recalls the impact of seminal rarities that is the Scopex 12”s in the late ’90s (look ’em up), or later on Plaid with “Tether,” and the peerless LA Synthesis “Harmonic Disassembly:” the kind of electro you could play to an enquiring alien who asks, “So, what is electro?” Humanity would be doing itself a solid by choosing those and these. Rarified space devoid of cluttered copycat air.
Elsewhere, “Technical Support” drips with grandeur and funk, groove-heavy and boldly beautiful, while “Cyclopedia” comes on like a link-friendly throwdown: body-popping, bone-shaking electro with enough technical muscle to make the point without ever showing off. This is production as practice, not display. Every move has purpose. Nothing is there simply because electro says it should be.
“Opalissism” brings weight and width, its staccato arpeggios and spray-gun beats flickering across the stereo field, before “Interior Reset” opens the floor beneath the whole thing, using negative space and broken digi-breaks to let the darker pressure breathe. Then the full eight-minute version of the album’s primary cut arrives, beefed-up and beautifully unruly, all prime-time beats and synthetic muscle. “Moon Landing” follows with swell, swagger and synths jostling for dominance before the drums finally kick the door in.
And then “Realisation Roads” takes the closing position and absolutely earns it. Fleck E.S.C., aka Franck Collin, goes hard and home, bringing the record down on a final surge of propulsion and precision. The album leaves the impression of an artist who knows the history intimately but has no interest in living inside it. This is electro with its lineage intact and its eyes firmly ahead: studied, physical, detailed and properly funky. The lesson is simple. Know the form. Then push the production until the form starts pushing back.
Faultless electro. Not predictable but familiar enough to be easy to grasp. Interior Rest is genuinely stunning.
Interior Reset is available on Pyramid Transmissions. [Bandcamp]
