Broken rhythmic structures, exquisite sub-bass stutters, and destabilized funk mechanics colliding into something gloriously unhinged. It’s machine music with bloodstream heat—tactile, sensual, and absolutely devastating at volume.
Reviews
Kotra :: Dim Ren EP (Prostir)
The waters here are torrid. But the result of swimming in them is to emerge somehow richer than before. The sound of subtraction through propulsion: the old and archaic riotously stripped away to leave space for the new. A violent recalibration disguised as transcendence.
Sound Synthesis :: Radical Meditation EP (Analogical Force)
Analogical Force remains a powerhouse label capable of balancing both forward-facing experimentation and deep respect for established electro and breaks traditions. Both approaches carry immense value, and perhaps the real excitement comes from hearing artists navigate the space between the two.
Boards of Canada :: Inferno (Warp)
I trust BoC to make something interesting and emotionally effective, but when it comes to their music’s meaning, they’re slippery and mysterious. Inferno is a collection of pieces that grapple with scary feelings, scary beliefs, and the inescapable feeling that you can only trust your senses so far.
Daniel Mayer :: _Matters_ Traces of Codes from Afar (Cero)
This succinct observation offers a glimpse into a language in which Mayer seems uniquely at ease. Through gathering otherworldly effects and artifacts that might otherwise be dismissed as errors, Matters animates unfamiliar forms and hidden possibilities.
Gliesse :: Lost Data EP (EC Underground)
What really gives Lost Data its sonic force is not all the included excess, but an apparent refusal to settle into the predictable symmetry of four, eight, sixteen bar logic as the expected routine resting place. The DNA of that architecture still exists, but it is constantly being bent, misaligned, mangled or re-angled until it stops feeling like a weak safe-house and guarantee.
Flint Glass & Ah Cama-Sotz :: The Shadow of the Torturer (Ant-Zen)
Drawing inspiration from Gene Wolfe’s monumental The Book of the New Sun, Flint Glass and Ah Cama-Sotz craft a dark and immersive soundscape via The Shadow of the Torturer that evokes the decay, mystery, and uneasy beauty of a far-future Earth where ancient machines, lost civilizations, and the long shadow of Severian’s fate still echo beneath a fading sun.
The Heartwood Institute :: Plague Dogs (Folk Police Recordings)
Much music is steeped in the history of the place where it was made, and here Jonathan Sharp, the musician behind this project, trawls the borderlands of fiction, imagination, and the real places written about in the Plague Dogs where he went to collect sounds for the album.
Bernhard Living :: The Future is Not the End of History (Donemus)
In Bernhard Living’s works, there’s almost always a straightforward title to express the context behind each one, and there is always a description paired with the record to fully elaborate on its concept. That ends up making music as minimalistic as this far more interesting to me.
IUGA :: Meldrop (Unexplained Sounds Group)
A really enjoyable eerie, isolationist and wistful electronic ambient release with enough ideas and well-designed textures to enthrall the listener.
Jim O’Rourke & Jos Smolders :: Albumin (Moving Furniture)
Albumin is limited to 500 copies on vinyl through Moving Furniture Records, and it’s exactly the kind of release that rewards deep, focused listening. Put it on, turn it up, and let the textures do the work.
Recent Posts
whø? :: Riding The Bassline EP (Who Is Paula)
Kotra :: Dim Ren EP (Prostir)
Sound Synthesis :: Radical Meditation EP (Analogical Force)
Boards of Canada :: Inferno (Warp)
Daniel Mayer :: _Matters_ Traces of Codes from Afar (Cero)
Gliesse :: Lost Data EP (EC Underground)
Flint Glass & Ah Cama-Sotz :: The Shadow of the Torturer (Ant-Zen)
The Heartwood Institute :: Plague Dogs (Folk Police Recordings)
