The coarse and calculated sequences of the industrial are omnipresent on the EP, as is an experimentation with modular synthesis and expectations of electronica. Espinosa investigates a bleakness and brutality that is usually ignored, a sound where man has fallen and redemption will not be granted.
Frak and Celldöd were Femur’s first vinyl steps, the Madrid label trekking the wiles of Sweden for some alt-techno and wave wrenched savagery. The third installment is staying in the sunny climes of Spain with local talent Geistform, aka Univac, but don’t expect “dos besos” and a warm smile from Rafael Martinez Espinosa’s latest 12”.
Four tracks are the offering, each dripping in distortion and soaked in static. In a fog of interference arrives “Interval Signal.” Samples circle a stark rhythm as strings surge. The track rattles, building a locomotive momentum that disorientates and unsettles. In fact, the 12” never truly lets the listener in. Geistfom maintains a distance behind the alien clank and judder of pipe and piston. Although “End of Entropy” opens with a recognizably striped drum, this is but a reference, an anchor in the swirling sea of gnarled bass and serrated synthlines that soon consume all.
The psychological battle hits fever pitch with the onslaught of “Frontier Fields.” Drone rises and rinses, an engine sawing into metal before guttering back. In this din lurks a beat and hidden within the haze hides an ephemeral tenderness, one waiting to be swallowed by the mechanism. “Perimetr” is, perhaps, the least caustic or perplexing of the quartet. Percussion leads a path, a path to follow, around which a broken and cracked groove is laid. Invisible beasts gleam, snarling and mauling their way through speakers. Yet, despite this rawness there buds a sensitivity. As in “Frontier Fields” an understated, but unmistakable, warmth lies buried under the weight of bolts, nails and screws.
Señales charts the innards of machines, it maps an inhuman interaction of cogs, gears and electrical current. The coarse and calculated sequences of the industrial are omnipresent on the EP, as is an experimentation with modular synthesis and expectations of electronica. Espinosa investigates a bleakness and brutality that is usually ignored, a sound where man has fallen and redemption will not be granted.
Señales is available on Femur.
