Eric Holm recounts his trips to the Arctic Circle and Norway’s sub-zero fjords in search of sounds never heard.
Is it possible to release electronic music in 2016 that looks science-fiction inspired without being cliché? Obviously yes, but records that count for something which aren’t wonted permutations of Detroit techno fantasy, sub-aqueous electro or over-conceptualised ambient are few and far between. Looking at the cover art of this Continuum LP it would be easy for the more dismissive critics to write off the album as another work solely inspired by the imagination of Stanley Kubrick. Imagination, however, is a place devoid of impossibility, and soundtracks to come from the deeper reaches of someone’s mind, like Paul Jebanasam, are rarely short of brain popping.
The Bristol pairing will release two excerpts of a live performance that took place in Berlin earlier this year.
The Bristol label’s first release of 2015 will be a full length from the Berlin-based sound designer.
Electronic music is meant to provide a release from the real world, but Medium, the latest missive by UK producer Emptyset, will bring anyone who hears it crashing back to the earth. There’s a desperate malevolence at play on this work, a sonic accompaniment to the end-of-days desolation so vividly narrated on Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The key difference however, is that while that novel provided no alternatives and seemed to revel in its nihilistic approach, this album offers an escape from the drab sameness and conservatism inherent in modern day techno.