Wonch like Woo has speaker cones trembling from the needle drop. Employing elements of D&B, electro and even industrial, QphoriQ dowses his productions in low sub to produce a ruffled and textured effect.
A volley of chest-compressing bass
I’m not sure I fully appreciated the richness of electronic music in Spain until I lived here. This is pretty understandable; scenes are small and the local is generally appreciated and nurtured by the faithful. Despite this, the breadth and depth of ideas and styles being pursued by artists and imprints on the Iberian Peninsula is truly impressive. Diffuse Reality, like myself, has adopted Spain as their home. Originally based in Buenos Aires, the label works out of Barcelona and releases a veritable feast of digital and physical EPs and albums. Just hitting record stores now is the sound-shifting QphoriQ with Wonch like Woo.
A volley of chest-compressing bass shakes “Bangladesh 8080” into existence. Cowed beats rise to the surface in this primal piece, drums skitter above thick lines as flourishes expand and retreat. The title piece takes that same energy of the opener and redirects it. Tribal patterns are skewered by broken snares and fizzing rhythms as a battery of beats rains down upon distant samples. The listener is thrown into the deep end with “I Don’t See Shit.” Looping snippets is the only flotation aid available to survive the sweaty barrage of key stabs, squelching bulges and punishing breaks that cascade from the heavens. Drums are a toy for QphoriQ. In “East Transit” they are bent, pulled and reshaped like plasticine, a plaything to be moulded into angular and serrated points before being smashed to smoldering cinders. Amen patterns are splintered by warm relieves and acidic charges in “155 Reasons.” The Exaltics arrives to rein in proceedings and apply some clinical electro order on things. The remix of “I Don’t See Shit” is sheer in its execution. Galvanized bass is punctured by slicing snares, scaling droplets of sound rising before the track is fractured in two to let the demons out (and in.)
Wonch like Woo has speaker cones trembling from the needle drop. Employing elements of D&B, electro and even industrial, QphoriQ dowses his productions in low sub to produce a ruffled and textured effect. Music for the floor, yes. Yet, amidst those frazzled hi-hats and turbulent toms lurks a subtlety of both craft and intent. Clever cuts that will have many the listener more than happy to “wonch like a woo” into the wee hours.
Wonch like Woo is available on Diffuse Reality. [Bandcamp]
