Primate seems neither as conceptually crafty nor sonically savvy. That said, Tommy Four Seven perhaps has his sights set on simpler aims, and undoubtedly deploys his deliberately restricted architecture and modality skilfully to peddle a set whose overall resolutely sullen and joyless mood is never less than enjoyable for all that.
[Listen | Purchase] Berlin-based Brit Brut techno practitioner Tommy Four Seven trails debut full-length Primate with freedom from generic source ingredients underlined and bolded; re-worked drum samples reneged, prefab synth solutions eschewed in favour of a home-made sound library of field recordings drawn from the day-to-day: mostly a capture of metals – metro train-tracks, scrunched-up foil, gunshot reports – treated to just shy of recognition, wrought into pounding grubby slabs, backed up with some sneakier moves, feints and punches.
Truth be told, though, for all T47’s trumpeting about abstinence, and for all that he may pose at the more exploratory end of the tech spectrum, much is still characterized by the tropes of mnml – whether muted or more militant – on a sliding scale between the more uppercase Schranz of CLR chief Chris Liebing and Plastikman-iac lowercase. Parts, assembled, still end up stirred into a similar-tasting recipe. Tracks such as openers “Sevals” and “Talus” are plotted on standard hard techno coordinates similar to labelmate Traversable Wormhole, along lines drawn from Downwards to the Berghain crew such as Dettman. At times that sound is leeched into by other trajectories, whether Neubauten-to-NIN Industrial effluvia (see “Ratu”), or post-Autechrean IDM run-off (see “Armed 3”), or both, as on the vaguely dystopian “G” (audio clip below). Indeed there are more shades than originally apparent in the T47 palette, even if they are variants of grey; and he knows how to stow the bludgeon in favour of the scalpel too, all eerie quiet on drone vignette, “Verge.” Elsewhere normal service is resumed, with the resonantly titled “Track 5” dispensing with subtlety to erect a wall of drone and screech that rises slowly to steeple above its catatonic drum thrum.
“Labels such as Stroboscopic Artefacts, Blueprint, Ostgut-Ton, Mote Evolver, Rodz-Konez, Sandwell District, Perc Trax, Prologue, Electric Deluxe, CLR etc – they keep my faith in techno strong,” says Tommy; this prompting the slightly unkind thought that the essence of Primate‘s sound could be more or less derived by aurally extrapolating from this list without spinning a single track. Abstracted vocal grabs – from fellow ex-pat sound designer Emika – bring some Mensch to the Maschine, elusive melodic dust blown in the dark wind; mention of this name, though, might bring invidious comparison with Emika’s ideation on the Ostgut Ton compilation, Fünf, using sounds recorded in club Berghain, against which – somewhat unkind again – Primate seems neither as conceptually crafty nor sonically savvy. That said, Tommy Four Seven perhaps has his sights set on simpler aims, and undoubtedly deploys his deliberately restricted architecture and modality skilfully to peddle a set whose overall resolutely sullen and joyless mood is never less than enjoyable for all that. At best Primate provides for a certain effectively visceral mood music for a new stern hard-bodied creed.
Primate is out now on CLR. [Listen | Purchase]
Tommy Four Seven “G” Official Video from CLR on Vimeo.
