Ricardo Garduno teams up with Jonas Kopp on “Parallel Thoughts: Two” featuring four gritty, dark, and funky cuts of pure Techno on his Illegal Alien label.
After his previous “Parallel Thoughts: One” release with Vinicius Honorio, Garduno has made the call to collaborate with Techno ace, Jonas Kopp. The result seems to have been a communication of similar ideas based on the concept of distorted and dirty atmospheres.
For example, Kopp’s “NanoFractal” bumps up the vinyl simulation and the noise floor as a strong base to bounce off quirky synths and sound design. Meanwhile, Ricardo Garduno’s “Just Holograms” rips up the frequencies of the low mid in his drums and synths with a supremely gritty distortion while contrasting it with straight beats and curious ratcheting sounds that pull you into the mix.
Similar ideas are present in Kopp’s “Misinformation Codes,” but Garduno’s “Strange Communication” takes it a bit further in the off-kilter synth sound design and sequencing. In all cases, the gritty base serves as a focal point where the rest is gently pushed over you in a really grim way but with funky flavor.
What’s new in this “Parallel Thoughts: Two” release are two exceptionally competent artists really exploring the possibilities within the sound design realm, making the textures an abstraction of audio—which has not been seen previously in other Illegal Alien releases—aside from the prior release “Parallel Thoughts: One”.
Distortion has really been seen as a creative tool in the past year or so… possibly as a revolt against Minimal House, peak-time Techno, or business Techno that would shy away from it? It would just clog up the mix. But for Techno artists interested in exploring the possibilities of sonic architecture in a new and abstract form, it’s been really interesting to see this sonic evolution come to the forefront and in the context of Techno and Dance Music.
-Sean Ocean
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