Stig Inge continues to hammer his hometown, subjecting its denizens to his brand of addled electronics, stretched sounds and fearful shades.
I was chatting to a mate recently about how my penchant for industrial techno had been developing. I’m not a fan of the term. Standing solo. Industrial. Techno. They work as terms. Together they seem to do little to support one another, instead diluting each other. And why is this dilution happening? Overuse. Overuse of the genre tag has left it pretty hollow.
But luckily we’re not here to worry about such things. The weakness of a noun-phrase can’t take away from what many artists are doing musically within that style. Stig Inge (aka Sebastian Reuschel) is an artist who has been exploring the grit and grime of decaying factories and rusting warehouses. Undoubtedly inspired by the greyness of his city the ZCKR stalwart has been pouring sonic concrete for near half a decade. And it is his hometown which gives its name to this four tracker of scowl and scorn.
The domineering beast of the EP is “The Sewer (Part I + II).” A full side is given over to this growling, grumbling, grating track. Energies build and break, surge and seep in this tribute to mechanisation. “Idiot 2002” is from just as black a place. Toying more with the classic parameters of techno, this grey and shadowy piece will leave an oily stain beneath your speakers. Percussion is cracked, gas and fear escaping through the clacking rhythmic pressures. “Exhausted” is angry ambience, bubbling but never boiling over. That same contained rage, that burning is present in “Abstract Pictures II.” The track is sinister, foreboding and when beats finally descend they are of the bruised and blurred variety.
Bremen isn’t a mild mannered outing, it’s not an historic stroll through the narrow streets of the city. Bremen is a harsh and haggard 12”, one of late night debauchery and lonesome lulls. Stig Inge continues to hammer his hometown, subjecting its denizens to his brand of addled electronics, stretched sounds and fearful shades.
Bremen is available on ZCKR.
