Cut via tactful glitch extracts, emotive landscapes, and moving organic ambience—fans of classic downtempo IDM from artists such as Arovane, Boards Of Canada, Deru, EOG, Lusine, Phonem, and Yasume will certainly enjoy Anomaliac. Kudos to Olaf Wempe for replenishing the past and fusing a musical smorgasbord into the now.
Anomaliac is an impacting eight track release (available as of early February, 2019) that feels like an album, but teeters on the edges of an extended player. Cut via tactful glitch extracts, emotive landscapes, and moving organic ambience, Netherlands-based Olaf Wempe is an artist that I unfortunately seem to have missed out on—special thanks to Touched Music for the recent suggestion!
With Anomaliac, we are transported to Boards Of Canada-styled interludes (take “Ednaloy,” for example) where nostalgic and fuzzy memories are at once looped in the background with an eerie undertone—buried deep in the mix, children’s voices chant the alphabet with a few giggles to round it off. Then there are quaint sonic substructures and dark-drone mechanics on “Kras”—somehow traversing only a minute and a half—that will rattle the core as sporadic spoken word segments emanate. Elsewhere there are traces of Arovane, Deru, and Lusine-inspired broken beats fluttering about with sentimental rhythms and a therapeutic stream on tracks like “Bitch Mirror.”
Animated sonic flows can be found at the center of Anomaliac. The enticing notes are reminiscent of Atol Scrap (Arovane, 1999), Trying To Remember (Deru, 2004), and Iron City (Lusine Icl, 2002)—just three prime instances of albums that crafted IDM’s highlight years. Each of these titles invited downtempo and ruggedly sweet abstract electronics to flourish. Olaf Wempe’s music has very much the same effect. “Tergum Substantia” delves into dusty layers and develops a glitch-hop trajectory that loops and unfolds with a clicks and cuts tone. Consistently refining classic IDM foundations, a unique voice is upheld on Anomaliac. Percussive rhythms meander through foggy corridors as tracks like “Phosphor” merge some of the finest sonic sculptors of the past into a kaleidoscopic soup. The nostalgia is mind-boggling, to be honest, as artists like Phonem, Yasume, and the icy grooves of EOG flood the memory-banks.
As Olaf simply puts it, “the state of relaxation is a natural state” and Anomaliac seamlessly creates a tranquil place to rest from start to finish. Delivering elements of fragmented electro (ie. “Cherry Tree Hugger”) to the opening hallucinogenic and shuffling beats of “Septium,” what we have here is a seriously hidden gem that deserves attention. If “Liliac” doesn’t inspire listeners to drift in parallel with Arovane’s gorgeous “Tascel_7” taken from Atol Scrap some 20-years ago (believe it, or not), then you’ve likely missed out on one of IDM’s revered benchmarks.
On that note, kudos to Olaf Wempe for replenishing the past and fusing a musical smorgasbord into the now. Anomaliac is a contender in our Best Of 2019 List, that’s for sure.
Anomaliac is available on Bandcamp.
