Five shrapnel pocked pieces of twisted metal, painted black, make up Information Overload.
Some artists mellow with time, especially in the world of techno. The hard lines begin to softened, the angles turn to curves and the approach melts just that little bit. Maarten Epskamp does not fit this narrative. Under his Klankman moniker the Dutchman is continuing his mission of doling out caustic servings of acrid music, pain streaked sounds for a deadened generation.
Five shrapnel pocked pieces of twisted metal, painted black, make up Information Overload. Tracks mirror each other in terms of production. Opener, “It’s Driving Me Insane,” is akin to “Polyritmiek,” in that they are some of the cleaner work. Of course, they are anything but clean; soot stained and clad in grime the two bite and snarl like a pair of feral mongrels. Nevertheless, darker material is yet to come. The 4/4 stomps of “Information Overload” are caked in mud, percussion dampened by distortion as acid claws sink into the filth. “I Need Sense Pleasures” sees a rare adoption of the human voice. Samples are fed into a mincer, mangled and mashed into a seedy stanza of soaked in static. And if you’re able for it there’s more. “Rubeboi” is, perhaps, the most unpleasant of the quintet. An off kilter pressure-boiled brick, this piece is truly ghastly. Beats stumble and stagger drunkenly, falling into one another as 303 bars hemorrhage diesel and disdain.
Neither Klankman nor Tar Hallow show any signs of easing up. Seven releases in and the dutch label maintains a sound so anti-social that it would kick in your teeth after blindsiding you down a dark alley, stealing your fags for good measure. If you’re after electronic punishment, and the pleasure that comes with it, you’ve arrived to the right den of discontent with Epskamp being the musically scarred sociopath serving up sonic strangulation.
Information Overload is available on TH ± Tar Hallow.
