Useless dives headfirst into subtle fusions of electro, ambient and light melodies without being overtly in your face. Slithering around loosely crafted bells, pops, cracks, plunks and shades of emotion, each piece doesn’t rely solely on twisting itself around tangled data bursts.
Jeff Pils’ self-released Useless sheds light on the uncompacted soil of electro, its multitude of directions and raw nature built from slivers of funk, industrial and experimental all rolled into one. Taking elements of articulated sound design and loosening the rhythms, a well executed dose of sonic beauty results. Originally available as a digital download in 2011, Useless gets an upgrade to CD status in 2012.
Useless dives headfirst into subtle fusions of electro, ambient and light melodies without being overtly in your face. Slithering around loosely crafted bells, pops, cracks, plunks and shades of emotion, each piece doesn’t rely solely on twisting itself around tangled data bursts. Instead, they slowly dip into the subconscious with astute bass lines, dribbling rhythmic pulses and active sound mangling that wouldn’t be too far off base next to Phoenecia’s Demissions. It comes as no surprise that Jeff Pils has already garnered a decent reputation with labels such as Touchin’ Bass, Underscan and his own Digital Gadget imprint as his experience level is clearly explored on Useless, a collation of tracks produced between 2000—2010. Breaking through a plethora of genres that hover somewhere in left field, each listen reveals a new aura. Highlights include the delicate and ever growing harmonies of “Wison” to the analog waves of “Part 71,” the robo-electro stabs of “Saerum” and “Kalkbreite” to the fidgeting Karsten Pflum-inspired “Syncoreal” and slow moving glitch-hop sparks of “Esotonne.” Sure there’s plenty of other colors explored on this release, but what the listener should take away from it is the multidimensional panoramic views created by these saturated beat-escapes.
Useless is available on Digital Gadget.
