“Psychedelic techno and IDM wrapped in ambient phases, ONE knocks out our senses and tears our eardrums”
1 Elementary Particles 9:18 2 Mind at Large 8:09 3 Sirens 6:52 4 The Eagle Has Landed 8:59 5 Tiny Paper Squares 8:19 6 Moksha 7:33 7 Neptune 8:34 8 The Gate 8:41 Spotted Peccary | SPM-2201 (CD/DDL 66:25) (V.F.) (Psy-trance, EDM)
I'm not really a fan of Trance, Goa, EBM (what is it exactly?) or hard or psy Techno. On the other hand, one of the things I like about EM is its immense potential to draw musical plans which are out of the ordinary. Sounds, many sounds of all kinds, and ethereal ambiences over rhythms of fire can thus satisfy my eager musical thirst of infinity. And it's exactly what proposes DeeperNET with his first album ONE. Spotted Peccary doesn't stop to amaze by widening its horizons with new artists of which the musical ideals are in total opposition with the very esoteric approach of the American label. After the superb Desatero from Northcore, it's the turn of Andrew Miles and of his project DeeperNET to shake the branches of the musical serenity of Ben Cox's label. The musical and sound exercise that proposes Andrew Miles is one of broken rhythms, chewed and spat out under diverse forms of Trance, GOA and techno between atmospheres of an ethereal and cosmic EM which leave just enough time to allow our ears to breathe. The rhythms are heavy and powerful, bubbling and raging in electronic ambiences as ethereal as wild. Those who know the kind will be easily capable of pointing out the influences. Me, I hear Leftfield, Prodigy, Juno Reactor, Daft Punk and of even a bit of Infected Mushroom grind me the ear in moods which awaken the reminiscences of a Jean-Michel Jarre in techno mode.
And from the beginning of Elementary Particles we understand the attraction of the electronic tones for DeeperNET. The intro is upholstered by layers of synth which float in the furrow of a storm imploding of heterogeneous tones. This brief psybient passage converges on the powerful pulsations of a bass-drum. And there it goes. Boom, boom! The rhythm is heavy, weighty. It skips casually on one leg in a sound environment fed by electronic tones about which only the imagination can dream and so feed cables and knobs of synths. A line of synth escapes in order to mold a nasal melody, while Andrew Miles splits up the rhythmic approach by sections, adding tones of bottles glasses, smoke sound hoops and fragments of melodies which get lost in a maelstrom of rhythms that the techno kind catches of its heavy strikings of percussions. The intro of Mind at Large is flooding our ears with a thick cloud of quirky tones to the smells of metal ripped by an immense crusher. The delight comes from the rhythm which takes shape by tens of knocks of anvils, pulsations to nervous and minimalist repetitions as well as noises of chains which rush on huge metallic bangings. This rhythm harpooned by a skillful mixture of noises, percussions and pulsations turns in the curves of a very melodious stroboscopic line before giving up for a more subtle passage which is near of cosmic ambient in the 2nd portion. This is very good. The cosmic sound elements are legions in ONE. On Sirens they knock off a linear pulsating and stroboscopic movement of a psy-trance odour. The rhythm hangs onto a movement of sequences with pulsatory chords which skip and resound in a dodecaphonic structure. A brief cosmic passage slows down the heat of a tempo which gets lost in the echoes of the voices of cosmic mermaids before spurting out again with a lesser velocity. And so goes the 66 minutes of this album.
Closer to hard and pure techno, The Eagle Has Landed and Moksha wriggle on rhythms as so lively as the synth layers of which the delicious harmonies and the hatched hoops are floating in the opposite direction of the attacks of a technoïd rhythm. DeeperNET takes a jealous care of breaking his rhythms by inserting some cosmic phases, except for Tiny Paper Squares which bubbles up of its percussions, sequences and futuristic sound elements. Hidden like a beast of electronic rhythm to the powerful psychotroniques drives, Neptune depicts marvellously the meanders of a psy-techno with a rhythm as much smooth as its melody to the hoarse and nasal breaths. The Gate ends by a stunning techno which resounds on the quiet among synth lines with a bit of musical barkings and chords of which the tones of glass and of xylophone are swirling on a structure in perpetual movement. We tap the foot; we bang the head and we listen to all these quirky tones melt themselves in an electronic melody divided up by thin stroboscopic lines.
Psychedelic techno and IDM wrapped by ambient phases, ONE knocks out our senses and tears our eardrums as much as it excites the 10 toes of the most awkward feet. Spotted Peccary takes a beautiful risk by opening a breach in its catalog to offer a livelier EM while keeping heading on the progressive approaches. And albums such as this one, I would take it regularly. Andrew Miles presents a mosaic of rhythms which, if they are alike, burst out of freshness and originality with this mixture of ambient phases and unbridled rhythms which are melting in a deafening techno. My walls trembled, my floors jumped, and my ears loved it.
Sylvain Lupari (July 2nd, 2013) ***¼**
Available at Spotted Peccary Music