The second solo EP from Melbourne DJ Fibre Optixxx, “Iris” captures the organic texture and generative, playful chaos of biorhythms and kicks off his new label, TRULUV.
While each track on this “Iris” release derives from a clearly distinct rhythmic framework, the yawning eye on the cover signals the binding inspiration—a kind of organic or biological soundscape made of wood, mucous membrane, and rippling antennae.
The name of the first track, “Cordycep,” references a kind of mushroom popularly taken in biohacking spaces as a cognitive supplement. It also recalls a recent trend in modular experimentation in which electrodes record small biopotential voltages generated as communication signals between colonies of mushrooms which are then amplified and used as a random sample and which hold inputs to cascades of modular machinery that transduce them into sound patterns that are commonly sporadic, generative, and unpredictable. There’s more organization here than that, but there’s something to the bright, elastic percussion of organic communication like some frequency modulated language spoken by simpler species with basic but effective systems that we’ve only just begun to understand.
Despite the dense and complex nature of these productions and overall theme, the music is actually quite playful and spontaneous in a way that sounds like it was just as fun to create as it is to listen to. Chopped up vocal samples in “Rigamortis” echo with the same doppler frequency as the springy percussion and gurgling sampled synth, accumulating an undeniable groove towards the end. A psychedelic, Fantasia-like ensemble of electrically active fungi is exactly what comes to mind on tracks like “Slugmist,” even as a tentative acid warble curls out from underneath the bright funk of the main melodies.
In “Petrichor,” the closer and most straightforward dance stomper, the essential spacey sonics of psytrance are harnessed and repurposed into a more direct techno, cooled off with icy hand percussion most at home in funky house genres. Bionic impulses croak out the first sounds of a new race of bioelectric hybrid beings testing their capabilities for rhythm. The fusion is as organic as it gets across “Iris”.
-Winston Mann
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