Gesloten Cirkel – Hole
There aren’t many genuine enigmas in dance music these days; Burial has long since been unmasked, the identites of Shifted and Rrose are well known to an eagle-eyed network of techno aficionados, and fresh attempts to create the air of anonymity are generally met with suspicion and derision. Gesloten Cirkel is one of the recent exceptions to the rule; what little information there is on the producer should probably be taken with a pinch of salt, but given the producer’s previous two releases, which have occupied a strange space between electro and house music, and appeared on the Murder Capital label run by I-f and Rotterdam-based Moustache Techno – it seems fairly likely that some connection to The Hague, either in body or spirit, can be safely assumed.
Released on the equally enigmatic Berceuse Heroique label, Hole makes that connection more explicit than either of the producer’s prior releases. Clearly inspired by the brand of electro that been seeping out of Holland since the ‘90s, the rubbery, ring modulated bass and taut snares of “Hole” follow a template that the likes of I-f and Unit Moebius have pretty much refined to an art form over the years. Gesloten Cirkel however takes it to the kind of extremes we’d expect from such a persona. With a grossly pumped up synth line and a punishing bass undercurrent, the track comes at you through the speakers like Batman villain Bane smashing his chemically-enhanced frame through a concrete wall.
The steroid-enhanced type of electro that the producer seems to be pushing in “Hole” has perhaps most in common with some of Boddika’s more 808 leaning cuts, so for the man himself to appear alongside Drkstr for one of their collaborative Transportation AAD remixes on the B-side seems quite apt. What their version lacks in terms of the original’s forward momentum, it gains in mind warping atmospherics that take the track’s title to its most literal extremes.
Although their drums are just as weighty as its counterpart, the duo break the relentlessly mechanical chug with moments of dense, dissociative Metalheadz-inspired low-end that make you feel like you’re being dragged into the hole of the title. Whether its a black hole, a K-hole, or a hole in the ground that opens to drag you straight to hell will be down to the listener’s own particular preference, but there’s no doubting that both versions of the track provide some of the most physically overwhelming electro of recent times.
Scott Wilson
Tracklisting:
A. Hole
B. Hole (Transportation AAD remix)