Alpha is only the second proper full-length by
Audion, the pseudonym
Matthew Dear has reserved for his harder-edged, club-focused techno tracks since 2004. He's released an enormous amount of
Audion singles since then, with some of them appearing on the 2005 full-length
Suckfish and many more ending up on the 2013 digital-only compilation Audion X.
Alpha doesn't recycle any previously released tracks, and it appears on !K7 rather than Ghostly International's sublabel Spectral Sound, which has issued most of
Audion's releases. The majority of
Alpha's tracks (excepting a couple of brief interludes) are business as usual; that is to say, propulsive dance tracks engineered to shape the peaks and valleys of a DJ's set. While the mid-oughts
Audion sound seemed highly influenced by the sleazy side of Chicago house, with unprintable song titles and acid synths,
Alpha seems a bit closer to German minimal techno, particularly Kompakt staples like
Wolfgang Voigt and
Michael Mayer. This certainly is no coincidence, as
Audion has remixed Kompakt artists such as
DJ Koze and
Robag Wruhme in the past, and the label released his 2014 single "Dem Howl" (which was actually the poppiest track he'd released under the moniker, and in a much different way than the songs
Dear records under his own name).
Dear's deep, acquired-taste vocals do appear on some of these tracks, but instead of singing proper lyrics, they generally just provide tones to be sampled and looped in the mix. A few tracks have slightly paranoid-sounding melodies that build up into the appropriate moments for going crazy on the dancefloor. Cuts like "Destroyer" feature big, choppy up-and-down laser sounds that seem primed for any dance festival you care to name. A few other tracks like "Zunk Synth" manage to turn flat, discordant synth noises into hooks;
Dear seems excited by what he can get away with in terms of throwing weird sounds into the mix while still igniting the crowd. Other tracks such as "Suppa" are a little more restrained and suspenseful. The album-ending "Sicko" is a little slower and dirtier, with a wispy, ascending melody providing a soft counterpoint to the grinding bass synth. The album retains
Dear's personality while dutifully serving its function. ~ Paul Simpson