Kaer’Uiks carefully solders Six Circuits into a smorgasbord of shape shifted sonic tapestry, celebrating its sixth spin around the Sun and gaining momentum.
Scraping beneath the surface with the sharpest tools
Celebrating their 6th anniversary, Kaer’Uiks continue to register high on our radar. Calibrating a diverse catalog of releases we’ve kept our eyes and ears on, Six Circuits expands and contracts with a darker tinge of curiosity and cohesion. A 6-panel limited edition CD Digipak and embossed inside, their projection of handcrafted abstract electronics (available in both physical and digital formats) is always on point, and Six Circuits doesn’t disappoint.
Baffling sound structures form and deform, unsurprisingly, as Kaer’Uiks’ label head and curator Daniel Glaser cuts a cross section through the whole abstract electronic scene—one release at a time. Based in Germany, the imprint zigzags to different coordinates around the planet, unleashing distinctive tracks that inhabit strange new worlds. As a result, jagged rhythms burst to life on Six Circuits, scraping beneath the surface with the sharpest tools of the craft.
Opening with Aelk Minsur’s electrical sludge on “121121,” the stage is set with tempered mechanics and clanging rhythms—don’t miss his recent Continuity and Discretion mini-album also on Kaer’Uiks described as “fragmented and chaotic.” Hypercube’s “Muted Existence” flickers through shuffling bleeps and distracted cybernetic funk as ABADIR’s minuscule electrical tones on “microfilariae” cascade and fade into CD-skipping, Oval-inspired oblivion. The frenetic sonic whiplash unveiled on Rachiid Paralyzing’s “Angelica” is enough to make your head spin, while Mitoma & Scald detail a dystopian world of gritty and distressed industrial slivers on “Inward.”
Six Circuits maps its way from start to finish ::
MTCH’s “Ilqure” is part extraterrestrial and part humanoid—dilapidated beats and glitches are sliced into hundreds of pieces. Sleep Clinic rattles the senses with “ota11a4c02JALB,” a sizzling slice of electrical mayhem as Hexalyne’s slippery “Traces Set” manifests grooved acid and Autechre-infused minimal electro-acoustic sound designs. The amount of ideas surrounded by hundreds of exploratory sounds are morphed into an infectious stew—just have a taste of William Fields’ “awobo” as an example. Qebo’s “Lanoqu” also traverses sliced electro echoes and stands out as a highlight while Marco Simioni closes with a futuristic acid techno piece “Genetix,” perhaps hinting at what’s in store for Kaer’Uiks in the new year. Their appetite for variety and creativity shows no limit or signs of slowing down.
And if there’s one track that will leave you scratching your head to wonder which galaxy N/OBE’s “Harvester (demo)” came from, one has to question how such a punchy and punctuated tune could ever take shape. The amount of fluctuating noise, broken percussion, and sandblasted braindance frequencies is a bricolage of all things experimental.
Kaer’Uiks carefully solders Six Circuits into a smorgasbord of shape shifted sonic tapestry, celebrating its sixth spin around the Sun and gaining momentum. Congratulations!
Six Circuits is available on Kaer’Uiks. [Bandcamp]
