★★★☆☆
Out of darkness… the even darker, a light that wants to return back from whence it came and illuminations loath to escape their blackened source. A glow created by Berliner Oliver Deutschmann rewiring the dimmer switch, makes you buy into a synthetic reality stretching across a full techno scale. Light-headed starting points, likening transport to music technology (“Junglo” sleekly riding the rail), are a prelude to your massaged temples being subject to vice-like repetitive stress, making you think twice about reaching for the embrace it can offer.
From taking some me-time to Deutschmann clinically going at you with whip in hand, “Siem Reap 2013” hovering with a force that comes from cycling over and over, the mind control manages a dividing area giving you the best of both ambience and aggravation. In a conflict of what to side with (“Sadness Descends”), the terra firma Deutschmann traverses either stimulates safeness from harm or isolation prompting anxiety attacks. As quick to make you feel comfortable, wanted and part of his plans as he is to take away the inclusion and become distant and single-minded, usually done within an easy shift in weight on the drums, it remains pretty direct despite leaving room for reflection and analysis. And in the way rim shots and percussion are structured and Joey Beltram is bowed down to on “New World Order,” an identifiable old school aesthetic re-coordinates dark and light from back when.
File under: Gowentgone, Ed Davenport, Tomas Svensson