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09 December 2016
Scalameriya - Kepslok

 

    2016 has been a good year for Serbian techno icon Nikola Grebovic, known as Scalameriya - his first full-length Hubris finally saw the light of day, being published through his label Genesa, he's had some strong remixes on Nachtstrom Schallplatten and Overdraw - let's not forget his mind-expanding, string-laden effort on Bombtists 4, and a three-tracker Haka that he produced for Perc Trax in cooperation with VSK. But now, the time has come for him to publish a solo EP on Perc's ever-astonishing hardline imprint, so let's not beat around the bush and get to the juice of it.

    First of all, while you are more than welcome to play these 130 BPM tracks in a warehouse setting, keep in mind that lack of due diligence upon mixing any of them together with your regular club tools can cause some confusion and bewildered looks coming from the dancefloor, as experimentality and reinvention is at the heart of this production. Grebovic isn't going for cozy shortcuts utilizing established patterns or rhythms, he breaks them, he breaks and reassembles the very fundamentals that you came to know and recognize in techno, in a revolutionary effort to expand this genre, making of it something else, something that lies a step ahead in its evolutionary chain.

    Titular number Kepslok opens with hefty, straightforward 4/4 kicks, shifting, glitchy textures of background ambiance, gunshot salvos fiercely and naturalistically firing from every possible direction, cornering the listener and rendering him completely defenseless, while an arpeggiated, ruthlessly distorted bassline, due to its micro-fractured nature, does a pretty good job at proverbial piercing of unseasoned ear drums - as easily, as your red hot dagger goes through creamy yellow butter. Annex No. 3 utilizes similarly shaped kicks accompanied by an exceedingly low, oppressing oscillation, clanging, metallic stab loops running alongside singular artillery shots, hissing, noise-shaped hats and shakers, short, but strategically placed, suspenseful ambient bands, and plethora of varied supporting arrangements that arise together with some shady vocals and traverse through channels without any established order. Last but not the least, the mind-boggling Geargrind - the hardest one of all to put your hand on: mutating time signatures, baffling garrisons of energizing, syncopated drum kicks, densely-running noise bands and real abundance of carefully arranged minutiae, ranging from nanoseconds in length, almost imperceptible sound bits all the way to the skillfully filtered, prolonged vocal chunks, sampled probably from the very demonic communications that were obtained from the infamous Well To Hell recordings.

 

Release Type: EP

Release Date: 9 December 2016

Release Format: Digital ● Vinyl

Record LabelCatalog: Perc Trax ● PTL008

Purchase Links: BeatportJunodownloadBandcampBoomkatCloneHardwaxJunoDeejayDecks

 

Category: Reviews
| Added by: rhetor
| Tags: industrial, Scalameriya, EP, Techno, Perc Trax, 2016
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