The intermediate moods tucked between these warped low-end frequencies is perhaps Karsten Pflum’s most valued asset. Often a collection of therapeutic electronic debris, No Noia My Love takes Hymen into untapped directions full of spatial funk, corrugated rhythms and sliced melodies that stick to the cerebral cortex with pleasing turbulence.
[Listen | Purchase] Taking a look back at Karsten Pflum‘s impressive back-catalog, he’s skipped alongside some heavyweight labels (ie. Rump, Worm Interface, Ad Noiseam, Jenka Music) and also with his signature left-field sound libraries. While not entirely driven by technically advanced exp-electronics, Karsten Pflum extracts precision grooves that are funky, wobbly and often distortedly playful. These sonic creations are always taken to the next level by emitting classic melodic structures; Plaid, Squarepusher and Autechre come to mind… not only as mere reference points, but rather as a reflection of the thoroughly engineered tracks Karsten Pflum produces. Also of note is his recent Nemo Loon EP with Ad Noiseam that saw this multi-talented musician diving straight into his own strain of minimal dubstep. But just when you thought there would be little room for Karsten to stretch, he proves again that the strongest characteristic surrounding his latest opus is raw energy. A brief appearance on Hymen’s Miwak Twelve compilation in 2009 now see’s Karsten Pflum expanding this energy into organized chaos.
With such an expansive rhythmic style, Karsten Pflum delivers rapid-fire percussion with emotive melodies that sparkle, twist, deform and elongate at every corner. At times veering into drum’n bass territory, No Noia My Love projects a bright light on the early sounds of Toytronic and Neo Ouija with pristine bleeps, beeps and reactive bass lines; nostalgia rests in the foreground. And it is with the above-mentioned description that this album is of key note. Each whimsical track on offer is clean-cut, dipped in digital trickery, and subtly manipulated with interspersed danceable segments. Even with the myriad of disjointed moments and crunched ambient noodling, the center of No Noia My Love is complex, deliberate and lighthearted.
Each Pflum production is memorable and one can easily discover polished gems defying time and space upon repeated listens. The intermediate moods tucked between these warped low-end frequencies is perhaps Karsten Pflum’s most valued asset. Often a collection of therapeutic electronic debris, No Noia My Love takes Hymen into untapped directions full of spatial funk, corrugated rhythms and sliced melodies that stick to the cerebral cortex with pleasing turbulence. Fans of early Gimmik, Metamatics and Eight Frozen Modules will surely enjoy this new take on intelligent dance music and it may very well be recognized in the years to come as a historical reemergence of fine-tuned digital deconstruction. Where will Karsten Pflum take his listeners next?
No Noia My Love is out now on Hymen. [Listen | Purchase]
