The consistent thread across nearly 20 years that Harmi Palda has been releasing music is the extraordinarily high quality of each and every track. They all sound fantastic, with not an element out of place or a lackluster, “phoning it in” characteristic to the production and composition.
Infinite Scale is something of a stylistic chimera. Early recordings like 2005’s Sound Sensor EP and the self-released Home Taping is Killing Music are very much in the melodic IDM vein characteristic of labels like Toytronic and Boltfish (both of which Infinite Scale has released on). Later releases like 2011’s stunning ekko location (Ecoshock, 2011) flirt with dub techno and house (check out the opener “Out of the Blue”; if you can keep your head from nodding along I’ll refund your money!). The consistent thread across nearly 20 years that Harmi Palda has been releasing music is the extraordinarily high quality of each and every track. They all sound fantastic, with not an element out of place or a lackluster, “phoning it in” characteristic to the production and composition.
This latest effort, The Value of Accessibility, out now on VLSI Records, with both digital and gorgeous orange vinyl releases, finds Infinite Scale moving his focus into downtempo and—acid house? Sounds odd, but it works wonderfully, because that aforementioned focus on quality brings the squelchy, echoed 303 lines into and out of the tracks with subtlety and verve. “Caught on Tape” sets the mood with spacious atmospherics, an off-kilter, lurching drum line, and when the unmistakable resonant, pulsing TB-303 melody emerges halfway through, it just feels right. “The Chauffeur” brings a more conventional trip-hop beat and spaced-out pads; “Ordinary Familiar” follows it with a mid-tempo 4/4 and chiming, bell-like tones that alternate with a beautiful piano line. The acid kicks back in on “Pay for This,” which weaves heavily layered atmospherics together with a deep bassline—this wouldn’t sound out of place next to psy-chill artists like Aes Dana or Solar Fields.
The closer of the 12″, “Steppa Side” is the strongest piece on it, pulling together everything we’ve heard up to this point in a tour-de-force of sound design and emotional electronics. There’s a guest guitar player on this track, Offue Okegbe, who adds heavily effected melodies and layers over a deep dub bassline and pulsing beat.
By way of explaining the album’s theme, Palda offers: “The title refers to the mountain of accessible information that we can retrieve at any time from the internet. We can listen and access music whenever we want—the value of which we must understand and appreciate.” The vinyl issue is doubtless an expression of that aesthetic: there’s something important about handling the physical artifact. Having to interact with the stylus and tonearm of the player, needing to pay attention to it as you listen, if only to remember to flip to the other side when it’s over, presents an opportunity to revalue our relationship with the music. In the case of Infinite Scale, it’s well worth the effort.
The Value of Accessibility is available on VLSI.
