BEZIER Vinyl & CDs

Review: Bezier's Negative Velocity EP marks the launch of their new German-based label Korperspannung. Formerly a Californian artist and now a Berlin resident, Bezier has a career spanning nearly two decades, from illuminating the Honey Soundsystem collective to releasing on Dark Entries records. Known for weaving diverse cultural influences, lifelong music enthusiast Robert Yang collaborates with Bay Area drummer Dave Easlick here as live drum recordings morph into curves and ellipses to shape a multi-dimensional landscape. Tracks like 'Diabolical Embroidery' and 'Deep Sea State' showcase Easlick's drumming prowess and infused with Bezier's melodic craftsmanship, reflect a meticulous working collaboration.

Review: Bezier returns to Dark Entries with Valencia, a six track rumination on memory, geography, and transmutation. Multi-instrumentalist Robert Yang's Bezier project has appeared on Dark Entries many times over the last decade, most recently with the 2018 LP Parler Musique. Says Yang, "What started as a project to investigate the love of the sound and scenery while living in San Francisco quickly developed into a passionate search for interlocking melodies and driving rhythms." On Valencia, Bezier invokes twinned places. The Valencia Street of San Francisco is channeled, which was the center of the city's vibrant new wave scene in the 1980s. But also echoed is Valencia, Spain, and La Ruta del Bakalao aka La Ruta Destroy, the Spanish clubbing scene throughout the 80s and 90s famed for its aggressive and synthetic sounds. Valencia is a darker record for Yang, exploring themes of submission and catharsis with nods to SF's gay leather bars of the 70s and 80s. The high BPM salvos of "Valencia" and "Scrupulous" capture the frantic energy of Bakalao and Valencian wave acts like Oltima Emocion. Elsewhere Yang mines the dreamy space disco and Hi-NRG sounds they're known for, like on the brooding "Past the Marshes" or the anthemic "Reservoir", which features their partner Len.Leo on vocals. Bezier deftly navigates past and present, light and dark, pain and pleasure, the stasis of memory and the flux of time. Valencia was mastered by Alex Michalski, with EQ for vinyl done by George Horn. Gwenael Rattke designed the sleeve, which features an 80's punk zine-esque geometric grid pattern mirroring San Francisco street maps. Also included is a 5x7 postcard with notes.