(06.14.08) Töshöklabs was born in 1998, but seemed to experience existential difficulties, struggling to establish anything that could be called a catalogue, and eventually seeming to have gone cryogenic by the mid ’00s. Ron Croudy co-founded the NYC-based label (with brothers Chad & Nate Harrison), and debuted (as technique:concrete and Cardboardmen) in 1999 with his first two tracks on Töshöklabs Presents: Dated, after which it was largely all quiet on the Eastern front. Various scene-y DJ spots and multimedia electronic art exhibitions aside, the Töshöklabs enterprise has been a near empty signifier—vaguely recognized for doing something a bit experimental with electronica, but with no real signified to attach itself to. But wait… reanimation is now upon us in the form of a sudden flurry of activity from Croudy, under new brand, Rontronik, with a debut EP in Aug ’07), followed by another EP and two long-format assemblages in ’08.
The first EP, Magma, is a bold (re-)statement of Töshöklabs purpose, cramming a plethora of textural tweakery and rhythmic grunt into its 5-track plan. While “She’s Magma” coasts in, content to simply stretch out a cool-jazz chord-loop over some neo-chill electroid headnod, “M-I-A (Motion-Inertia-Axis)” rolls out a clattering programme of dirty beats and thrumming bass pulses, smearing it with a film of distant dissonant ambience. This excursion grabs the electro- template and does with it something similarly dark and dangerous to what the Funcken Bros did with acid techno under the guise of Cane, viz. gets it into bad boy beat company, and drags it out to unsalubrious places past its bedtime to play fast and loose. In contrast, the 16-minute marathon, “Retina Flash,” is a piece that sets out to show that Croudy is re-born to synthesize, rebirth issuing in exploration of the fascination of (mainly) synthesised sound’s textural diversity through a largely beatless space-scape. On the more recent Sparks of Ice EP, Ron trons on in a similarly hybridizing manner, though this time in more reined-in mode, and to greater effect. Over three sub-5-minute tracks, he doles out two stoneground and sandblasted slabs of thudding sampledelic electribalism (“Sparks of Ice”) and off-kilter machine funk (“Global Warning”), ending with the skittering piston pump light-industrialism of “Iron Caterpillar.”
Drones and Random Noise Encounters Volume 1 and Volume 2 exhibit a variably reduced and extended, though invariably questing, sub-genre palette. “R-tronix” opens with Croudy cruising in his favoured electro- mode, then going underground as if on some wayward stoner acid trance mission. Though the sample-laden noise-mongering of “Solaris” provides little more than a distracted transition, “Drone I” patches effectively into a domain of fidgety and queasy ambience whose sci-fi flix electronix combines with naturalistic noises-off as if to soundtrack some barren planet or abandoned earth zone. The 11-minute zoneout groovescape which is “Synthesis (Long form)” brings to mind the likes of Belgium’s Hidden label—perhaps a less than helpful reference point, not being especially widely known, but what the (DJ) hell, it’s the nearest sonic kin. To be precise, Ron and his tronica histrionics – its Old skool-parade of squelchy 303-isms, funky plunky drum-mechanix, and psychotropic scuzz – starts to strike as soul-brother of Hidden’s unsung Dutch duo, INKlings (cf. Rontronik’s “Acid Track 3” and “Acid Track 8” vs. INKlings’ Acid Jams Vol.1 and Vol.2). That said, the likes of “Tundra” and “Scuba Dive” prefer to set up ambient drone outposts and let them loop the loop, the latter bringing some languid but deliberate beats to the table and spinning in sundry digi-tritus and sample food to mix up a strange psychedelic illbient brew. Volume 2 
brings more versions and variations of grainy ambient, twisted and stretched out contours, spacebass pulse and electro-atmo, acidic 303 squelch, planetary rocks and cocky beatbox. Odd nods along the way too—let’s say Drexciya, Chocolate Industries/Schematic and Pete Namlook, to name but several, illustrating Rontronik’s allegiance to and creative continuation of a line from ’80s electro to ’90s ambient and the IDM crossover. No criticism for plagiarism, just tracing the lineage, and anyway Croudy does his bit to extend the line into the ’00s with boldness and invention on all these releases.
All four releases by Rontronik are out now on Töshöklabs. [Purchase
