This third album from British techno producer Guy Brewer is his second for Dominick Fernow's (
Prurient) Hospital Productions. There's some irony in Hospital having released 2013's heavily industrial Under a Single Banner on the techno-oriented Bed of Nails sub-label, and then putting out the much more straight-up techno of
Appropriation Stories on the mainly industrial-focused label -- though of course Fernow, with his
Vatican Shadow project, is no stranger to techno himself. This album would not have sounded out of place on Brewer's own Avian label, and there are a lot of similarities to Avian co-owner
Sigha's 2012 debut
Living with Ghosts, which is not really surprising. For this album, Brewer has supposedly appropriated music-making techniques from his days as half of drum'n'bass duo
Commix, hence the title -- but these are presumably subliminal, as you'd never know it from listening; there are certainly no drum'n'bass influences apparent on the record, it's techno through and through. There's a warmth and an organic feel to Brewer's music, probably stemming from his use of primarily analog gear, and he's a master of texture. The percussion sounds that make up the bulk of the "music" on each track have amazing variety and are structured into the most intricate patterns. Sounds like ringing metal, woodblocks, shakers and scrapers, rattles, scratches, pops, and clicks echo through the soundfield. The rumbling bass and skittering percussion on opener "This Passage" evoke a lost world, a cave system perhaps, or a mist-shrouded temperate rainforest with unseen creatures scuttling through the undergrowth. When the kicks start up on "Vacive" (which ironically means "leisurely" in Latin; the track is anything but), you know you're in for a hell of a ride. The groaning "Resin and Lacquer" almost swings. One of the most "industrial" tracks here is "Flatlands," whose combination of thick, oily bass and deep, flat, thudding kicks is almost overwhelming; play it loud enough and even on headphones, you'll feel it in your chest. In fact, like all the best techno, the whole album is best played as loud as possible to really grasp all the nuances -- and for that authentic club experience, of course. The album's centerpiece is the epic, almost beatless "For Closure," which swamps the listener with an unceasing wash of deep bass drones. We are then flattened by the pounding "Spires," before the album rounds out with "The Faintest Trace, The Quietest Whisper," a morbid, dystopian, low-tempo shuffler with something almost approaching a melody. This is an austere work, perhaps lacking some of the dank atmosphere that made its predecessor so compelling, though it's not so much absent as transmuted somehow; less now the darkness of the Amazon than the Ruhr. But the production is masterful. This is an extremely cohesive effort, and while in some ways that means the tracks tend to sound a bit the same, it repays close listening with a wealth of filigree detail. [
Appropriation Stories was also released on LP.] ~ John D. Buchanan