Amsterdam-based Jasper van der Vliet of V35 records, better known as JSPRV35, joins Illegal Alien for a set of gritty, stripped-back cuts filled with strong atmospheres and strong grooves for his latest release, “Skye.”
Here’s a great release on Bandcamp definitely worth the price of a vinyl release. Do you want it? Too bad, it’s sold out already. Well, to be fair, actually, that’s the special edition, and you can preorder with Clone Distribution for the regular release. And, of course, Clone.nl has the digital. Why does it matter? It’s certainly a positive sign that people really are after the cold, stern vibes and the gritty textures in these grooves.
Right off the bat, the title track “Skye” gives off that cold, classic techno aesthetic: hard-pressed compression, wandering synth hits, saturated atmospheres, and of course, you can’t go wrong with those conga percs. The resonant, gritty atmospheres on “Skarpo”, as well as the FM metallic clanking synth line, give a solid industrial vibe, while there’s a wicked pushed groove that lines up the track. It seems a bit reminiscent of late 90s hard-minimal-techno aesthetics of labels like Energy Industries and Fine Audio Recordings. The track “Lush” rests heavily on a counterbalance of what sounds like a Quica hit versus a squelchy, resonant timbre that plays heavily with early vs late reverb reflections to find the centerline of the track’s groove. It’s quite bizarre, but nonetheless intriguing.
Mystique is the outlier here, and possibly the track that will do the most damage on the dancefloor as well as do your head in if you’re actively trying to pay close attention to what’s going on. It’s a track you will just want to let wash over you. There’s such intensity in the rides mixed with frenetic sequencing of the main synth element that is treated with all manner of filtering and/ or pitching envelopes and that come and go so fast, your mind has no way to catch up. It’s the kind of calculated madness anyone into proper techno can get fully behind. “Wild pitch” ideas with expert control? Absolutely.
There are a lot of lukewarm releases this week, some of which are going through the motions or even re-releasing some old tracks or old ideas. Some are fairly good, mind you, and even some ideas do need revisitation. The stark, hard-compressed minimal techno of the late 90s is certainly present here, but it’s passed through the lens of more than 25 years of innovations, mini movements, and attention-seeking efforts at glamming up techno.
JSPRV35 isn’t about any sort of glam or super-big-sounding music. He’s more about proper techno that works as a functional piece of a puzzle in a DJ set as well as keeping things buttoned up and professional while still seeking out the wild ideas that drive every track forward with nuance and flavor.
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