Highly emotive yet beat-driven downtempo, textured techno flurries, and heavier rhythmic patterns. A new angle with similar trajectories, UnknownDivide seeks to vanish preconceived notions of four to the floor anthems and embarks on a surreal bass-laden, organic-infused, and percussive avalanche.
Also known as Drifting In Silence on Labile Records, Derrick Stembridge has recently splintered into the contrasting UnknownDivide moniker. With Instinct we see the North Carolina sonic craftsman designing highly emotive yet beat-driven downtempo, textured techno flurries, and heavier rhythmic patterns. A new angle with similar trajectories, UnknownDivide seeks to vanish preconceived notions of four to the floor anthems and embarks on a surreal bass-laden, organic-infused, and percussive avalanche.
Where previous outings were meant to “design enveloping-soothing soundscapes which can advocate mind travels and encourage thoughtful meditative postures,” UnknownDivide evades any one particular groove. With loosened electronic constructs meandering through delicate dubstep fields (as found on “Dust”), this audio collage is also fueled by flickering low-end and synaptic beatwork as noted on “Hypnosis.” And quite frankly, there’s a full roster of sounds transmitted on Instinct. “Obeisance” takes us back to mid 1990s-era RDJ versus A Guy Called Gerald as it evolves from ambient plateaus to dub’n space driven by drum’n bass echoes fluttering in a welcomed nostalgic rewind. The title track dips and dives into darker breaks colored by melodic bits with a guitar strumming backbone to hold it all together. “Idols” reveals a sandblasted techno stream and is elevated by distant whispers surrounded by ethereal rhythms.
It seems that Instinct is perhaps the album Stembridge had in his back pocket all along—the vast collection of sound waves and multidirectional focus highlights the artists’ knack for outright downbeat expression. The amalgam of light and dark are set loose to reveal more robust techno elements (let’s not forget the contagious “Symmetry”) counterbalanced by softer ventricles as highlighted on the otherworldly charm of “Ephemeral.” A pleasant sojourn through cascading peaks and valleys, Instinct is a blissful album filled with interwoven discoveries and broad musical discourse.
Instinct is available on Labile.
