Border One aka Steven Petit, makes another outing on Setaoc Mass’ SK-X with 4-tracker “Inner Sight” featuring mellow, yet cerebral hypnotic Techno groovers.
After securing a solid foothold as an artist on Kr!z’ Token Records, Border One has really established himself as a musician with principles and the right sort of uncompromising taste of a true Techno artist. Here on SK-X, after his 2020 release of “Restless,” Border One continues to show he has a calm and orderly approach to his music that is deeply thought out but also well under control. His style exhibits expert control over his sounds, proving that he’s the true master of them and not the other way around.
Nothing in the mixes and these arrangements stand out as too wild. Instead, Border One chooses to exhibit his creations safely behind glass, so that you look at them with an inquisitive and still reverent gaze. Each track has the deep, cerebral synth work and part interactions, but his touch on the tracks has this really detached and intangible nature to them which proves to be a new take on dissociative hypnotic Techno. Whether this is a choice with a certain compression setting, or the right amount of diffusion in the reverbs, everything is just out of reach.
“Optical Void” seems to hint at this with the panning or mid-side processing pushed way out on the droning synth. The parts are very far away from you. “Mind’s Eye” also has this detached sensibility where the layers in the synth only interact harmonically, and they are never on the same level. “Inner sight” also takes the sounds and doesn’t make them immediate for you to feel. Ironic since on a massive speaker stack, you’re going to feel the SPL in these notes on your body, yet sonically they still are a bit reeled back in the mix, creating this real physical and mental disconnect that is truly hypnotic. “Third Vision” seems to give an homage to Robert Hood and Minus label Minimalism, taking it to another level with solid tension-building elements, rolling toms, and complimentary grooving synth patterns to make it into something all his own.
Summing up “Inner Sight”, Border One has chosen to represent Techno in a new sort of way that doesn’t exactly throw the Techno world forcefully on its ear. That’s not his style. There’s just a set of well-crafted Techno that shows expert control of the sonic sphere and the stage in which he sets his sounds—some things that are massive, physically, but mentally intangible and curious to think about. It’s hard to think about any other artist other than say Ø [Phase] that approaches his mixes in such a way, but Border One exudes a truly professional and strong sense of control that is unique to him in this EP and is unprecedented anywhere else.
-Sean Ocean
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