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23 November 2017
Artik - Contemplation

 

    Artik is a Berlin-based producer Guillermo Martin. His efforts in 2017 have already yielded an impressive EP on COUM Ltd and an exceptional remix for Sirio Gry J's compilation Unknown EP, so as we would expect, this impressive Spaniard continues to nurture his talent—this time, through one of our favourite techno imprints. Yes, Contemplation EP sees Martin's return to Sirio Grimaldi's Monolith Records for a second solo effort after 2015's Sphere.

    On opening track Unmasking A Confidence Trickster, Martin allows the tightly reverbed bass drums to punch through thunderous rhythmic noise into a condensed mist of ghostly harmonics in an assertive yet restrained fashion, resulting in a quite tense interaction between the elements, and in turn charging the ambiance with a tribal mystique. The Rejection picks up the pace, stirring the machine-driven, percussive layers into a vat of bubbling, highly concentrated caustic soup that gradually heats up before slipping in tightly controlled compression alongside the distorted FX, in a skittish, breakbeaten, tech-hop mutation. A rather more industrial affair, Absent-Minded gouges at scarred metal, scrawling, bumping, and grinding, with its mechanoid, yet curiously laid back, hesitant flow; the results make a satisfying, futurist-cybernetic funk that'll challenge any dancefloor. Finally, The Rejection is thrown into the safe hands of Sirio Gry J and the outcome of that is positively filthy: taking the original to a much darker place, the relentless percussion is driven harder than ever into unsettling morbid atmospherics; it's a poisonous mix with a much more abusive tone, the sonic equivalent of getting bound and gagged, before being trampled into the ground.

    Martin is an artist that doesn't seem to want to be pinned down, lurching from one genre-defying release to the next over the course of his relatively short career, the only one constant we hear is that of a solid plinth made from a hardened techno aesthetic that allows him to sculpt, carve, and chisel atop his experimental hybrid monsters.


Words by b.yond.

 

Release Type: EP

Release Date: 23 November 2017

Release Format: Digital

Record LabelCatalog: Monolith Records • MDS004

Purchase Links: Bandcamp

 

Category: Reviews
| Added by: rhetor
| Tags: 2017, Techno, EP, Sirio Gry J, Artik, Monolith Records
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