Album Review: Marc Romboy & Ken Ishii / ‘Taiyo’ (Systematic Recordings)

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★★★★☆

Holding its own like a premium tire designed to skim across black ice, two tech-house titans survey the Tao of Taiyo, cracking their knuckles and working out game-winning strategies while menace and the need to mesmerise runs through their minds. All via the middle man-cutting medium of a modem.

Cased in a sphere of wires, “Seiun” loops over and under itself while bass rises to the top like a controlled endorphin rush. “Helium” is a comedown with ache undercutting it, foraging away in an out of sight bunker while wisps of magic fill the air, though the rather too funky bassline dubbing up the still is the package’s one thorny issue.

“Dopplereffekt” hammers and heals, tech-house that has a synth rhythm jumping up and down with casual Balearic knowledge, seeing if it can cool the striking of the iron. “Suisei” is another moody worker of thrills, squirming electronics and acid infiltration plaited around a deep trance body, lifting arms and making brains connect the dots. The title track, showing awestruck tendencies before a bassline propeller tells it to quit dreaming, is your peak time rumpus or end of the night race to the finish line. Closed out by “Der Strand” bathing itself in newfound bliss, it’s an achievement to make a mini-album of only seven tracks and create logical progressions, including scene setting headers and footers. And of course, without any physical interaction.

File under: Bodzin, FLR, The Analog Session