Nexsound – experimental, ambient, noise, improv record label

Review

Groove

Zavoloka-Agf – Nature never produces the same beat twice

Katia Zavoloka är en av de mest intressanta artisterna på den lilla electronicascenen i Ukraina. Ofta, även här, öser hon ur de ukrainska folksångerna för inspiration och texter. Alltid gör hon experimentellt utmanande musik som kräver mycket. Den ger också tillbaka. Man känner sig alltid lätt omtumlad av att vara i hennes sällskap. På Nature Never Produces the Same Beat Twice har hon hängt med tyska Antye Greye Fuchs, eller AGF. Hon har beskrivit sig själv som poem producer eftersom hon använder datorn och sin musik till att läsa poesi lika mycket som att göra musik. På den här skivan dominerar dock det instrumentala. Och det är faktiskt skönt. Då får de släppa ut experimentlustan hela vägen. Upphackade röster förekommer bland de kantiga beatsen, men det tar aldrig över. Det blir inte poesistund. Bara högteknologiska kast som garanterat skakar dig ur vintertröttheten. AGF bidrar också med en mer utvecklad ljudbild än vad Zavoloka tidigare presterat. Ett nödvändigt och bra samarbete.
Mats Almegård

Grooves

I/DEX – Seqsextend

That Seqsextend begins with a track entitled “Texture” is entirely apt, as this recording is swathed in billowing, gaseous layers. On that opener, a descending bass line motif can be glimpsed beating underneath the dense, cycling clouds of hiss, hum, and crackle but just barely. I/DEX is one Vitaly Harmash from Byelorussia, and Seqsextend is his debut on Nexsound, a Ukrainian label that’s previously released material by Muslimgauze, Francisco Lopez, and Kim Cascone. Harmash is no novice, however, having recorded since 1997, and he clearly knows his way around this particular IDM territory. Song titles are perfunctory at best and suggest a kinship with Arovane and Autechre who share a similar penchant for cryptic, abstract titles. But the similarities don’t end there, as Harmarsh’s debt to Uwe Zahn (aka Arovane) especially goes deeper than titles, judging by the music. “Rand” and “Ciq,” for example, are textbook Arovane, with glistening keyboards, ambient textures, and clicking beats serving melancholy melodies and dreamy atmospheres. The addition of an Eno-like squiggle in “Rand” does, however, differentiate the song from its otherwise pure incarnation of the Arovane style. Other songs pursue more propulsive ends. On “Recor,” Harmash deploys surging waves as propulsive complements to his house-flavoured techno rhythms, the resonant, burbling keyboards channeling gorgeous strains of classic Chain Reaction. Seqsextend is enhanced by Harmash’s decision to leave no gaps between tracks, resulting in a seamless one-hour set of thirteen tracks. Doing so gives the recording a stronger fluidity and cumulative impact it would have lacked had the tracks been presented separately. The recording’s also deceptive in that-like Arovane’s music-its quieter, ambient leanings camouflage the accomplished but subtle detailing that Harmash creates throughout. On the down side, as expertly crafted as it is, Seqsextend is hardly innovative, as it advances little upon a style established by others. (Grooves Magazine, Issue 13)