Signs captures Purelink’s alchemy at its most liquid and immaterial, mapped in mutations of glitch and glass, rhythm and sound, drum and space by turns subdued and subterranean, elevated and remote.
Mapped in mutations of glitch and glass
Tommy Paslaski (Concave Reflection), Ben Paulson (kindtree) and Akeem Asani (Millia Rage), bring their Purelink project to LA’s well-regarded Peak Oil for Signs. This tripartite fusion of forces crosses sleek dub techno with pristine ambient electronica in a compound that feels as if wrought from viscous chrome lubed with liquid pulses, lightly fizzing with nano-glitch and micro-flutter. Since formation in 2020 they’ve regularly convened in a shared studio to workshop, swap samples, and further cement their collaborative bond via laptop light, seeking “something different than we would make on our own.”
Peak Oil, which hosted the acclaimed Topdown Dialectic editions, is a shoe-in for them, moving on from previous on UwU dust bath, NAFF and Lillerne Tapes, which featured ambient-based genre outings in downtempo, jungle and more. The sound palette of the semi-structured hybrid evolved here ranges beyond, and farther back than, the tropes of dub techno and related, flirting with the fuzzy fringes of 1990s downtempo. Signs, though, sees a further shift towards the clicks’n’cuts of early ’00s post-digital experimental, albeit the Chicago trio’s take is tougher, lower slung, yet finer in motility, as on the spectral waltz of “4K Murmurs,” one of several whose mix of chillout room switch-off and club-nodding turn-on makes for meatier fare than most mnml. The bustling bass of opener “In Circuits” sets the tone, throaty thrum offsetting the chromium polished pads that limn otherwise glitchy particulate contours. A similar heft makes itself felt on “Stadium Drive,” which, for all its pure ambient gesture, constructs itself gradually into brokeback techno. Its other distinguishing feature is a large improvisational element that, however much structure there may be, asserts itself as each track builds through solicitous layering, frequently ending up quite elsewhere from starting point.
Distilled from extended compositions prepped and performed over 2022, Signs captures Purelink’s alchemy at its most liquid and immaterial, mapped in mutations of glitch and glass, rhythm and sound, drum and space by turns subdued and subterranean, elevated and remote, at a site of intersection between Basic Channel and slo-mo Luomo, joining the Deepchord to (Vlad) Delay dots. You’ll know you’re there when you find yourself Elsewhere.
Signs is available on Peak Oil. [Bandcamp]
