symmDROME :: re•cur•sion (Point Source Electronic Arts)

Ravaged rhythms and vocal distortions unfold and teeter on jagged edges and yet there’s a mysterious draw that can’t be ignored.

Raw creative power and blistered electronic landscapes

Described accurately as “a psychedelic slurry of bubbling synths and percolating beats” in an email exchange by Point Source Electronic Arts‘ Mike Slansky and Alex Stilts, symmDROME traverses 16 tracks of mechanically drenched mayhem and madness in one fell swoop.

Ravaged rhythms and vocal distortions unfold and teeter on jagged edges and yet there’s a mysterious draw that can’t be ignored—listen to “Hexxxed” as a prime example. Delving back and forth between tangled electrical wires and muffled lyrical extracts (“P3w P3w”) to tempered fizz-fuzz synths leaning on industrial structures (“Glorgin Glorg”), re•cur•sion simply baffles the ears. The cybernetic glitch-funk and technoid prism of “TECHWeeD” is another highlight of deconstructed dystopian soundscapes that distorts everything in its path.

Voice experiments bend and twist throughout (“PLUNGE” is a favorite) as miniature neural avalanches and sprawling noises decompose. Tracks like “Beyond The Eyes” and “PoreTUL,” however, venture through ambient wildernesses—nostalgic time capsules we never knew existed. While re•cur•sion treads on fractured sound dynamics that fans of Richard Devine, Cyrusrex, and Download will devour, the results are a mixture of raw creative power and blistered sonic landscapes that will have a lasting hold on its audience to kick off the new year. A smorgasbord of beautifully corrupt and crunchy electronics.

re•cur•sion is available on Point Source Electronic Arts. [Bandcamp]