Igloo Magazine :: [2View] Rusuden :: GANZFELD (Sender/Receiver) (SoHo Six / ElasticStage)

Conceived as a holistic sonic endeavor

Rusuden (aka Justin Morgan) returns with GANZFELD, a two-phase project that divides a twelve-track album into two distinct yet complementary releases: GANZFELD (Sender) and GANZFELD (Receiver). Together, they articulate a particular expression of accessible electro-lite across the experiential field, conceived as a holistic sonic endeavor.

Both releases are rhythmically anchored in familiar 808 patterns: bouncing kick drums and tight, tiny snare snaps and claps that have inhabited our collective consciousness since Marvin Gaye’s sophisticated, self-programmed rhythms on “Sexual Healing.” But this is merely the point of departure. Rusuden’s achievement lies in an exceptionally intelligent sonic vocabulary, where beauty emerges through melody, ambience, texture, tone and timbre. Fat bass thumps underpin shimmering synthesizer sonics, while accessible neo-funk grooves provide the connective tissue for twelve assured, mature compositions.

Percussion that punctuates movement ::

The musical lineage is audible, but Rusuden makes it their own. There is something of Kraftwerk in the disciplined interplay between machine rhythm and melodic precision; something of Depeche Mode in the marriage of muscular electronic bass and atmospheric synth textures; and something of Ultravox in the luminous, carefully sculpted tonal architecture. Yet these connections lead somewhere beyond simple homage. Rusuden filters that European electronic inheritance through the mid-eighties collision of electro-funk, the TR-808’s distinctive rhythmic vocabulary and the kinetic culture of breakdancing, popping and robotic movement. The result feels connected to the moment when electronic music became as much a physical language as a sonic one: bass that propels the body, percussion that punctuates movement, and synthesizer lines that seem to animate the space between the two. Rusuden captures that sensibility without slipping into period pastiche, retaining its futurist spirit while shaping something intimate, contemporary and unmistakably their own.

Describing music with words remains a doomed enterprise; language can approach the experience but never replace it. GANZFELD (Sender) and GANZFELD (Receiver) reward listening as a complete statement, their intelligence residing as much in atmosphere and restraint as in rhythm. Gorgeous in affect and impact. Seek them out. Wonderful stuff.

GANZFELD (Sender) and GANZFELD (Receiver) are available on SoHo Six / ElasticStage.