Takahiro Mukai — SomosanSeppa
Osaka’s Takahiro Mukai’s music writhes with energy, all ring modulated beeps and metallic percussions. It harkens back to a time when music served a very clear spiritual purpose, as catalyst for ritual and enlightenment. Tinges of Acid House abound but the tracks possess a different kind of purity and focus, closer to Hypnobeat’s drum machine Onslaught than to Phuture’s anthems.
His new release on Paralaxe Editions, SomosanSeppa is an incursion into lively jungle scenes, a soundtrack to an even more feverish Conrad, like Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement’s club minded cousin.The tracks are alive with shimmering detail and behave like a well tuned macro organism, each element occupying it’s position on the ecosystem.The Jungle drums and acid bleeps are enveloped in pristine ambience and frequently disintegrate or get swarmed with small nocturnal beast calls, always guided by the ubiquitous tribal drum machine pounding, not unlike Black Dice’s creature comforts, if that record was more firmly steeped in dance floor preoccupations.
Takahiro Mukai has only been active for a couple of years now, but he has already produced some of the most confoundingly rhythmic and alluringly mutilated works for modular, left-field electronics. – Adhoc : Full review.
Ondness — Them Corja
Listening to Lisbon based Bruno Silva’s work as Ondness is like getting sucked into one of Max Ernst’s decalcomanias. Steeped in Pychon’s dense paranoia, Bruno builds his compositions from blurry sonic objects, imprinting them on loose structures.
His newest release for Paralaxe Editions, Them Corja, a 4 track hovercraft cruise through swampy waters sounds distinctly metallic at times, mouldy mechanisms spring to life on ghost Traffic and a forgotten piston engine pounds in the distance on Rod Serling’s predator whilst Skaters Pulses with vibrant ritualistic vibes.
Echoes of leftfield techno of the likes of Gas loom over his music but Silva manages to twist and bend them beyond recognition, creating his very own textural ooze, filled with pointillist detail and primal propulsion.
He has an extensive discography on labels like Where To Now? Metaphysical Circuits and Phinery.
The sweetest hook comes in the middle of opening cut “Rod Serling’s Predator,” where minimal bass-and-beat touches lead morph into nearly danceable mechanical transgressions. From here, the tape descends into abstract territories, but the listener is already hooked at the sugary opening track. – Decoder. Full review.