Black Merlin – Hipnotik Tradisi
Throughout his career, Black Merlin man George Thompson has been welded to the dancefloor potential of percussive hypnotism. Since the rubbery, gently blissful positivity of his debut 12” on Bird Scarer back in 2013, Thompson has applied his repetitious, slowly unfurling template to a variety of styles. Yet while his solo releases have touched on pitched-down cosmic disco, synthesizer-led krautrock, EBM, bleak new wave and, most recently, pulse-quickening clandestine techno (see last year’s fine excursion on SORN), his love of drawn-out atmospheres and locked-in grooves has remained a constant. Like many fine producers, he’s been able to reinvent his sound almost at will, while maintaining a constant thread throughout his work.
In theory, this debut album promises another large sideways stride, inspired as it was by a month spent travelling round Indonesia’s islands with a portable recorder. Thompson amassed a vast archive of field recordings, both of natural sounds – rainforests, beaches, wildlife, villages, and so on – and those created by the indigenous, ‘old world’ musicians he met along the way. He then sifted through these recordings in his London studio, using them as inspiration for the first installment in Island of The Gods’ new album series, Island Explorer.
Those expecting some kind of humid, sticky, sun-baked exploration of blissful tropical textures and life-affirming melodies should look away now. While there are occasional moments of woozy positivity – see the jubilant village party of the loose and percussive “Fire Dance”, and the near symphonic strains of blissful closer “Voyage” – for the most part Thompson has chosen to take an altogether more paranoid musical path.
This much is clear from the outset, when reverb-heavy rain forest recordings and exotic, but distant, Indonesian instruments claustrophobically out-manoeuvre foreboding ambient chords and creepy electronic textures. There are numerous other dark and moody ambient pieces dotted throughout Hipnotik Tradisi, and each seems to revel in its’ vaguely threatening, almost cripplingly humid nature. This is certainly true of “Somewhere In Bud”, a psychedelic exploration of manipulated throat singing, discordant wind chimes and spooky field recordings, and the buzzing, drone-goes-to-Bali business of “Waiting For The Horn”. Creepiest of all, though, must be “Layang Layang”, which takes this humid paranoia to new levels of tense creepiness.
Where the album really comes alive, though, is when Thompson indulges his love of hypnotic, metronomic rhythms. These are evident amongst the album’s most striking moments, from the pitch-black, post-punk throb of “Tutur” – a kind of droning, early-‘80s workout seemingly suffering from the hallucinatory effects of a debilitating tropical fever – to the dense, rain forest techno throb of “Time In Motion”. Similarly impressive is “Reef Play”, where Indonesian chants and the chatter of island life swirl around a druggy techno rhythm like ghosts of some bygone imperial age.
Throughout, Thompson’s subtle fusion of field recordings and studio instrumentation is impressive. Throughout, he manages to capture the sticky feel of Indonesia’s outlying islands, while twisting this paradise into some kind of bleak, post-apocalyptic vision. It’s a remarkable achievement, all told, and one totally in tune with the dark times that lie ahead. Even those tracks that are more reliant on traditional Indonesian instrumentation, and in particular percussion – see “Totek and Tim”, and standout “Sepeda Kumbang” – dance to Thompson’s dystopian tune.
Matt Anniss
Tracklisting:
1. Surrounded Peace
2. Wave
3. Somewhere In Ubud Part 1
4. Somewhere In Ubud Part 2
5. Sepeda Kumbang
6. Time In Motion
7. Tutur
8. Layang – Layang
9. Fire Dance
10. Reef Play
11. Totek And Tim
12. Waiting For The Horn
13. Flight EK – 0358
14. Voyage