This music is futuristic in feel; almost old fashioned in its total modernism. There’s nothing here – in spirit at least – that harks back to, or references anything.
This music is futuristic in feel; almost old fashioned in its total modernism. There’s nothing here – in spirit at least – that harks back to, or references anything.
http://www.konkurrent.nl http://www.planet.mu/artists/italtek
Ital Tek (aka Alan Myson) has been making great for what must be a number of years now; I think Control is his fourth or fifth LP and while a lot of his work has also looked to stretch itself, I think this new LP is the one that is the most open and inquisitive in exploring new lines of enquiry.
The lad’s certainly concocted a reflective, sensual and sometimes ingenious sound; one that seeks to use the core fluidity of dubstep and drum & bass as a platform on which to experiment or open up new vistas. Myson claims he creates “futuristic dubstep soundscapes” and to be honest I can’t really argue with him. This music is futuristic in feel; almost old fashioned in its total modernism. There’s nothing here – in spirit at least – that harks back to, or references anything. For sure we get drum & bass patterns, most notably in the opener Fireflies but other tracks are fragmented over a variety of approaches and attitudes, all of which seem to be wrapped up in their own “moment”. There’s no template that spans the LP. Rather each track is a self-contained, hothouse bubble of sound, almost hermetically sealed – and the change between a run of tracks such as Challenger Deep, Ultra and Jupiter Ascent is marked.
So we skip from spacey, aggressive kicks and condensed beats as in the title track to rolling langurous cinematic washes in Zero. Or encounter dense and opaque sounds such as on Challenger Deep; where the beat is built up through a processed loops of mutating arpeggios, counterpointed by some soft, and thick keyboard washes. And a track such as the brilliant – and weird – Violet could quite happily sit anywhere, or justify itself to anyone; its construction is so perfectly formed it seems to answer any question it sets itself.
To sum up? Its a really sensual and enervating listen. And I suppose if any listening experience can come close to being tactile then it’s this one. Well worth your time.