The Berlin based minimalist Amotik returns to self release another pair of tonic driven, atmosphere laden functional techno pieces on his label Amotik.
With an artist and dancefloor aficionado like Amotik, who is in the thick of things every weekend or maybe every evening if you are out on the town in Berlin grabbing pints… you are secure in knowing what works and doesn’t work on a dance floor. A long string of functional minimalist works on the Amotik label, and occasionally guesting on labels like BPitch Control, sees Amotik working within his own realm and arguably its a sound all his own and does not follow any trends. As a result, it’s a body of work that fails to be attached to any particular date. -Would not say timeless since it is definitely music of this era and works well within DJ sets.
There are so many people who want to make bangers and catch the limelight for having fire tracks, but it’s a smart move to make tracks to function as a necessary part of constructing the nuts and bolts of the DJ set, while layering music creatively and having a real conversation with yourself, the DJ and the dance floor. That kind of intelligence and restraint is veritably techno.
With that in mind we venture out into the big idea with Amotik 012. The overarching concept is “consonance.” Each track on this release has an overwhelming sense of satisfaction that comes from returning to that driving tonic note… which the kick and the main driving tone are working together to create a main focal point. There’s only slight dissonance here and there to drive you away enough to desire the consonant kick and root tone, but it’s presented to you in such a way that it is always providing a sense of home. And I admit, this is something you look for in techno after frying your ears all night on blistering high hats at a club; or trying to find something fresh to listen to for this week’s review.
Each of the tracks on this release are very conceptually similar, but only with slight differences. “Pachpan” “Chappan” both come out with a strong establishment of the kick and tonic tone as well as subtle dirt and noisy synths and provides a sense of therapy with these atmospheres and tasteful reverb. If you’re familiar with Deepchord/ Rod Modell’s methodology you probably know just how well noise can be effective at providing a sense of calm and peace.. Amotik also seems keenly aware as this is the landscape from which he builds these gurgling and scintillating synths that slowly evolve the ‘dominant’ tones in the track peeling away from the root to provide just enough tension to make the track work. Also at play here is a very minimal techno concept of hiding things in plain sight. You get the idea of a certain part and are like ‘ok, what else is there?’
So your ear starts to wander… meanwhile you lose focus of that element and it changes and slips by without notice, leaving you fairly hypnotized. This is a game in which Amotik loves to play and I think it might take a good many run throughs of each track to actually hear the audio sleight of hand at play here. Nice subtle work throughout.
So what’s the score? Is the EP new, exciting, groundbreaking, fist pumping, zomg balls to the walls techno.
No.
But that’s not the point. This is the kind of techno you will have to be deeply involved with to love and it’s really for the nerds and those who really know their music. For those heads who love to spark one up and listen to old Mauritzio records, or handle their Minus records with cotton gloves.. or who were there the first time when Robert Hood really took on the minimal mantle. This is that shit. But also, this is not just for the heads, you could be a DJ who’s smart and looking to wipe the palate clean and help people come back to center with something simple to focus on after manipulating their minds for the last half hour before making your way back into some full on techno assault. Or a DJ could even use this as a 3rd deck record to keep pace with whatever looping madness you got going on in an XDJ.
Whatever the desire, it seems like with this release, Amotik gives you permission to go out there and play.
-Sean Ocean
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