Dutch Techno head Thimo Konings made a breakout vinyl debut with his release “How Does One” on Emmanuel’s ARTS label. Now a fully digital version drops as a compliment to a release that has shown to be full of well-designed and deeply hypnotic, grooving cuts.
Thimo Konings has been under the watchful eye of the ARTS label with their compilation and has also been lauded with placements on a few other label’s compilations. Konings has had a great bout of success with his collaborations with SAMA and has been featured on Secret Cinema’s Gem Records, but this might mark a turning point for the artist with full support from the ARTS camp.
Since the vinyl release in September, “How Does One” has been making waves and sold out on Bandcamp with other vinyl strongholds, such as Hardwax, and Juno maintaining the bulk of the remaining supply. This October’s digital release on the 18th makes available what was only available for the vinyl purists and has now descended upon the unwashed masses.
What separates Thimo Konings stylistically from other producers in Techno, more than anything else, is a matter of bass control. Not so much as a formulaic approach—such as we add this to that and we get this result—in a nuts and bolts functional mixing technique. It’s that the artist has fully leveraged the idea of connecting the satisfaction of a well-made low-end to his audience, almost as if it satisfied an itch we didn’t know we had. “Ah yes, that’s the spot.” We hear this time and again on this release, and it’s most prominently featured on the track “Convert” where it’s fully given its time to shine.
“Convert” has a very druggy and warm bass very slightly modulated with strong filtering and ducking ideas. This is central, since it sets up everything else in the song, from the syncopated rumble and low tom to the staccato strobe lead part that comes in after being filtered and buried in this low end. It’s such a strong groove and yet, not a very insistent one that leads you as a dancer to place the harder attacks and transients on the downbeats with your body leading the way.
“Tower’s Reach” also features a similar approach to “Convert” but leans heavily into the disembodied pads and syncopated, smudgy, delayed chord hits. For a dancer, it’s too difficult to have time to listen to all of these elements, so you don’t. You just let the music wash over you, succumbing fully to the moment. And it is absolutely powerful.
Throughout the EP, there are a lot of little vocal snippets for your mind to chew on. They aren’t fully obvious unless you’re looking for them. But for a person whose musical world may come entirely from vocals and lyrics, this could be an inroad for the rest of the hypnotic elements to creep their way in while you focus on the affected syllables. Keep a strong ear out for them in “How Does One”, “Sirkel,” and maybe even heavily ring modded with reverb in “Double Split”
What else can you say about this release other than it really comes as no surprise that ARTS and Thimo Konings have teamed up to bring one of the best releases this year?! You could say it comes down to ARTS’ incredible ear for talent, but also there’s a deep passion for Techno that comes from Thimo Konings’ work that is evident here.
It all just comes down to a deep and mutual appreciation for the best that proper Techno can offer.
-Sean Ocean
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