This label debut for Vexed Sphere defines a perfect parabolic arc from cerebral techno to all out war and back again, hopefully defining a blueprint for an exciting new label in a city in desperate need of one.
It’s always exciting to listen to a label debut, but especially so when it’s a debut out of San Francisco managed by an artist as devoted and frankly interesting as Rubidium. If you’ve ever seen her play out, you know exactly what I mean. Her strengths as a selector are in full force here as she’s handpicked incredible new talents to represent her new project, a 12 track VA compilation which; if purchased physically, comes with silver chrome stickers, visual art and poetry, and a few interviews with industry insiders.
The opening tracks shine and hypnotize with spectral power endowed to them by deft limitation. The kick drums, more implied than omnipresent, leave swaths of the spectrum open for sonic richness that is replaced with texture, unfathomable depth, and evasive or at least sonically nebulous hooks. It is electronic music stripped and gutted back to technically perfected fundamentals, and better for it.
Some tracks (“Speed Demon”, for example) seem to literally accelerate and decelerate without applied force contrary to Newton’s second law in the antigravity field created by the buoyant kicks and radio frequency communication bleeps drifting through deep space, the cries of a lonely pulsar light years away, sending signals into nothing.
There’s an excellent cohesion from track to track and shared principle of which is difficult to achieve in a VA release featuring so many rising artists, the album building in intensity with each successive track like the perfect night out, before sublimating down into left field techno that is just as exciting as the mid-release heavy cuts.
A flat out stomper, SF mainstay JX-216 delivers “Protest”, acid sounds time warped so far they are barely recognizable as such, over a kick that would send even Perc running for cover, it’s a stand out track.
Even harder is “Here I Lay”, a relative sonic departure from the release, a stripped back but effective supercell of kick and acid.
The climax is reached with “Kukri”, a track which would not be unwelcome in a Dutch rave: a beefy hardcore kick slowly distorting, overwhelmed by the noise floor as the song progresses, as if maddened by it’s own intensity.
As the heat cools off, sub aquatic synths evoke murk, confusion, and borderline dementia, while still insisting on dance floor prominence. Ghostly whorls of sound cloak a jittery, clanging kick for an effect thats as spooky as it is off-kilter on “Rise”. There are the warbling groans of something that sounds like a didgeridoo on “Uncanny Blink.” In the closing tracks, the line between art techno and dance floor smasher is successfully walked.
It’s heartening to hear so much intensity, playfulness, and emotional range from young acts. This is exactly the kind of release that makes me excited and hopeful about the future of techno music. The kids are all fucked up, and that’s alright.
This release is significant for reasons beyond the production and sound design, however. The techno scene in San Francisco is always forward thinking, resilient, and extremely underrated, comprised of small but banging clubs where the music is top notch and the vibes are immaculate. But it is threatened. Places like the Underground in the Haight or F8 in Soma where artists like Rubidium and JX-216 and others on this release, who make up the heart and soul of this genuine and beloved scene fight tooth and nail to keep nightlife banging in a city growing increasingly hostile to underground art. We must not let this city fall to the uncool technocrats who flock here to guzzle $20 cocktails at godawful EDM clubs. A new techno label based in San Francisco indicates pulses of new life in the city, and gives me hope that the scene there is far from over.
– Winston Mann
Check out the release here on Bandcamp!
