The Exaltics :: 10 Million Light Years EP (Solar One)

It’s great to keep the old days alive, to celebrate those that started everything, but I’d be inclined to think that we are now living in the day of electro and the sooner we realize that, and support it, the better.

Electronic music is just as retrospective as it is future gazing. For a sound that has always prided itself on being the next step forward, as breaking from old traditions, electronics does have a dichotomy. Despite wanting to go its own way, past masters of machine are held in almost unaccountable high regard. There’s always the sense that new comers cannot compete with historic pioneers, that they are mere imitators and not progenitors.

In the arena of the reissue, a mainstay of the last decade, this desire to comb archives and revive the bygone days is ever present. That´s why a repress from a so-called new name, one with a decade of experience, piqued my interest. Well, it would have piqued by interest anyway as does anything from Robert Witschakowski aka The Exaltics.

The first release, a pen drive back in 2007, has been set to wax. 10 Million Light Years was the first steps of Solar One Music and its co-founder. Four tracks make up the 10” and I´d certain expectations before setting needle to wax. First outings of an electro newbee, my guess was rudimentary coldness. My preconceptions were soon dashed. The quartet are fast and sharp but within the set parameters lurks The Exaltics search for the other. Spacey synthlines bend and curve under weighty ballasts of bass, lonesome vistas are warmed with subtle shifts and key changes. Other pieces, like “High Voltage Accelerator” border between brooding atmospherics and frigid mechanics. Kan3da closes this debut with an arctic remake of the title piece. Crisp beats piece cascading chords in this sub-zero finale.

It’s interesting to look at 10 Million Light Years in context. Ten years ago a new bloc of machine musicians came to the fore. Cultivated Electronics opened its doors, Gerard Hanson was excelling under his E.R.P. moniker and Solar One Music was established. Since then electro has blossomed as a genre thanks to these modern masters, The Exaltics being a cornerstone of the movement. It’s great to keep the old days alive, to celebrate those that started everything, but I’d be inclined to think that we are now living in the day of electro and the sooner we realize that, and support it, the better.

10 Million Light Years is available on Solar One.