Lewis Fautzi returns to PoleGroup with Intense Mechanism EP, a gritty, compressed release full of subtle and heavy dissociative mid tempo techno.
Portuguese techno champion Fautzi has become, in the last 5-10 years, something of a contemporary hero among techno heads to have left his name burning bright among such names as Reeko, Blawan, Regis, and Surgeon. Not any insignificant list by any stretch of the imagination.. as such, you can just see Lewis Fautzi in a list of titles and blindly throw it in your ‘cart’ knowing it will be up to an already high standard. With Polegroup at your back vouching for you as an artist, this makes for a strong release, one the techno heads and Polegroup fanboys are sure to love.
It’s been said with some speculation that with this EP marks a tougher sound, or at least a continuation of a trend for the Lewis Fautzi brand of techno to be a heavy hitter among strong powerful techno tracks in sets at the peak of the night. If you’re new to his material you cannot see this trend develop, but you can definitely see a departure from his more thoughtful and deep album on Soma The Gare in 2014 and the technical and stark landscape driven BPitch Control release Deep Illusion in 2018. It remains to be seen if Lewis will be going any harder and more driving in the years to come. It seems that with this EP and his output in 2020 there’s been a deeper investigation into the mechanics of what makes a functional harder techno track work. He doesn’t escape the things that he loves, such as the precise sound design and his prominent atmospherics, but more so is attempting to adapt them to make their place a more permanent fixture as peak hour techno. It will be good to see where this trend develops, and it’s going to be good riding out his discography during this time. “Intense Mechanism” is one more step in this direction without going all-in.
First track in is the deliciously gritty broken techno track “Induced Pulse.” While I personally have never bonded with most broken techno.. for the reason that a lot of broken techno wakes one up from any sort of trance state and sounds like shoes in a dryer, this track gets beyond that, helps retain focus with a very cold a dissociative filtered vocal sample and what’s more, the broken kicks would work really well to help drive any standard 4-4 kicks you put next to it. In this case where some people would try to make a full set out of this.. I am fairly sure that this track is a successful device to help progress a set in interesting ways. Whether it is to slow down a fast running track, or provide a pause in the night, it’s a good and successful broken techno track for layering and would be fun to DJ with.
Next in the release “Undirected Differential” comes to us with a very heavy compressed feel, is pushing the limiter hard and the intensity of that feeling is accentuated with a band passed synth that has a bunch of dynamics torn out as well. On top of the track you have an icy layer of a highly EQ’d ride that really evolves the track in tastefully subtle ways. The patterns in the track do not change so much as provide these long drawn out and overdriven stripes of audio that really make you want to turn up the volume to hear what other nuance is there. And the nuggets of nuance that are there, become a subtle and welcome relief to the overbearing pressure of the track.. lots of room to explore here despite it seeming empty at first listen.
3rd track is the title track “Intense Mechanism” which shares a similar concept with “Undirected…” compressed, band passed synths and lots of squashed compression as the main effect but what ups the intensity from the previous track is the filtered lead that is dragged over the top and high hats that sit tightly just under your eyes really creating this rough and gritty feeling; the type that makes you want to move to shake it off. On a big system this track would be very entactogen enhancing and attempting to pull your mind from the dance floor. Pretty huge and is definitely worth noting as the leader on the EP. You can also tell that this is an affirmation of what will work and is a continuation of the recent experiments Lewis Fautzi is doing to enhance his foothold on harder and more intense techno.. The track is successful in this regard, and does not need to rely on faster BPMs or any other bags of tricks other than what he knows will work, and will work well.
Last track, “Stimulated Absorption” is my personal favorite mostly because it’s kind of a throwback technique wise.. and for a crusty techno DJ like me this immediately reminds me of Christian Varela on Primate or Basic Implant, CLR, Mankind Label stuff from the 00’s that makes me feel right at home. Is it forward thinking, is it advancing the genre, ground breaking shit? Well no. But does the track sound great, is it soul stirring and does it make for cool head nodding techno? Well, hell yeah. For once we don’t have to be stodgy and play by the unwritten code that all techno has to be futuristic. Sometimes it’s helpful and inspirational to look back at what made that era successful. It seems like Lewis Fautzi here has been diving into the 1 Euro bins, taking inspiration from older records and by the strength of the rest of the EP has really delivered on advancing a lot of successful techniques of the past. The dead giveaway to that, is definitely the big nod to heavy compression all over this release and the subtle filter and eq tweaks that aligns a lot of past ideas to the modern day.. techno has never come out of the clear blue sky, it’s a continuation of a long series of ideas. It’s good to hear that as much as an innovator as Lewis Fautzi is, he is still a student and looking for ways to develop techno based on its whole rather than hopping on the latest trend from the last few years.
While this EP might be standard material with high marks as often the case with any Polegroup release, and while it seems at first glance there’s not much going on, there’s enough nuance and places to explore within the music that make the EP worth that initial impulsive grab in your hold bin. Getting time to explore it and the themes within it as well as getting to know where techno and Lewis Fautzi is at as a musician, will make the “Intense Mechanism” something that you will grow to appreciate.
-Sean Ocean
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