Substak :: Abrasive Deluge (ECHØVEIL)

Substak returns with Abrasive Deluge, a stark and immersive dive into eroded ambient textures and haunted sonic debris.

Eroded textures shape night soundscapes

Kostas Staikos (alias Substak) easily figures among the most productive sound artists of recent years, while surprisingly maintaining a constant creative quality. I first discovered his sound production through releases published by the U.K.-based label Sea Blue Audio, largely devoted to minimal synthesized soundscapes and spectral electronica with an experimental and sometimes glitchy edge. Among other works released this year, Kostas published the highly recommended Empty Halls (Sea Blue Audio).

Substak is a multifaceted musical entity with a broad artistic spirit and a sensibility for a wide range of electronic music, moving with equal compositional ability between ambient techno, dub, downtempo, and microsound-oriented experimental noise.

Abrasive Deluge is welcomed by the Quebec-based label ECHØVEIL Records, whose originality lies in publishing material that borders hauntological music, opaque dronescapes, and various sampled textures. I have explored many of the label’s releases with great pleasure; the results are most of the time chilling, surprising, and unexpected, expanding our listening capacity and sometimes leading us into genuine “mind trips.”

The DIY approach of the label and its lo-fi experimentations, often combined with a strangely blurred ambient facet, are reminiscent of what we could experience with labels such as Grisaille (Germany), Cascading Fragments, and Opal Tapes.

Abrasive Deluge provides two lengthy, abstract, microtonal, and eroded ambient tracks that play with an abundant collection of disintegrated signals, deteriorating technologies, and languid silence, occasionally sustained by swamping ghostly layers. The abandoned industrial machinery used as the cover artwork perfectly illustrates the grey and isolated atmosphere of the album.

To be played at night, eyes closed, with headphones.

Abrasive Deluge is available on ECHØVEIL. [Bandcamp]