“Liquid Decimation is another solid offering with some great mid sequencer-based EM from DASK who continues to charm my ears amazed by other gems of Berlin School”
1 Morphine 10:38 2 Liquid Decimation 10:42 3 Toxification 9:20 4 Cleanse 6:00 5 The Quiet 3:07 6 Transformation 20:16 7 Pure 2:50 8 Liquid Decimation (Radio Edit) 8:27 DASK Music (71:20)
(Berlin School) (V.F.)
That's a lot of music for DASK in 2017! After a first album, Abiogenesis, which has gone under radars at the beginning of the year, the English synthesist literally seduced me with his first album on label SynGate appeared in April, Electron Utopia. Then a clearly more furious album came about 5 months farther; Messages. And finally, here is LIQUID DECIMATION; a 4th album which shows no sign of breathlessness at DASK who promises us moreover very productive beginning of 2018. Third album produce independently and which is available on DASK Bandcamp for little US $5, this 4th opus is of the seed of a good sequencer-based style EM of the retro Berlin School style. The beats are ambient to mid and the album lives mostly through its sequencing patterns and synth effects. There is no, or only few, synth solos. The synth is of used for effects which decorate the ambiences of the colors of the title's name.
Just to put us in the DASK mood, Morphine perfumes our ears with nice layers which float under various sound flavors, among which one with a hollow tone of organ and another one with a suspicion of esotericism. These two lines float with slow morphic movements as intense than anesthetics. A movement of bass sequences escapes in the beginning of 3rd minute, tracing a lively movement which skips with a subtle alternation between each hit of the sequencer and within electronic effects and synth layers which go and come with their clothes of greyness. It's with the dialogue of a synthesizer and spectral synth lines that the title-track makes its entrance. I'm not certain, but I hear shouts or murmurs in an introduction modulated for a fear movie. Moreover, a tenebrous veil installs its reflections of white noises about 80 seconds farther. And it's there that some very Redshift sequences breathe and grumble. A cloud of interferences and of sonic radio-activities irradiate the first minutes of Liquid Decimation of this aura wished to well embellish with images the idea behind the album and its title-track. The ambiences are lugubrious. Very lugubrious! A fascinating movement of rhythm gets in towards the 3rd minute with oscillating movements which little by little stick to the heaviness and the fury of the sequencer. This movement skips with its shadows and its reflections of cracklings, tracing a structure which will explode as in the best moments of Redshift. Those are two very solid titles which start well enough this last album of DASK in 2017. Especially that Toxification offers a structure which feeds on phases of the first 2 titles, but with a more contemporary tone. After 2 passages of sibylline moods which are Cleanse and The Quiet, the very long movement of Transformation blows us literally the ears. Its intro drinks of the psychotronic passages of Neuronium with huge synth layers and their effects as disturbing as anesthetic. Very early, a movement of the sequencer draws these soft rhythms where the feeling to rise and to fall, or still to zigzag, in a grotto in order to escape a predator who crumbles the twilights of his big sharp teeth. DASK plays the magician here with parallel movements which inject more dynamism into a constantly evolving rhythmic pattern, so modifying its route and its velocity which will reach its peak with a techno beat towards the finale and where Jean-Michel Jarre infiltrates for the first time David Marsh's influences in his universe mainly indoctrinated by Redshift and by Tangerine Dream. What we have here the best title of DASK. And there was some very good before this Transformation! Pure is another title of more ethereal ambiences where even lies a delicate sonic poetry, whereas Liquid Decimation (Radio Edit), amputated of its moods opening, just gives us the taste to re-hear LIQUID DECIMATION. Or still the first albums of DASK who solidifies more and more his position in the vast chessboard of EM of the Berlin School style. Another strong opus to put between our ears, you my friends who just love a Berlin School lively and invigorated by another artist who manages to make his place with a bit of freshness in this universe where even the plagiarism is attractive to the ears of aficionados. Except that with DASK we speak about originality. And Transformation is a monster!
Sylvain Lupari (November 13th, 2017) ****½*
Available at DASK Bandcamp