Spanish producer
Psyk, aka Manuel Anós, has consistently churned out top-quality, moody, functional techno on labels like Figure, Semantica, and his own Non Series, but this is only his second full-length in a ten-year career, following 2014's Time Foundation for
Luke Slater's Mote Evolver. This release, for Berlin mainstay Tresor, shows just how far he has come in those five years. Anós is a master of making a lot with very little; it was the entire raison d'être of the
Psyk project to begin with, inspired as he was by artists like
Steve Rachmad and
Plastikman. And on this album he has stripped his sound to the bone. Utterly fat-free and concentrated, there's nothing here that doesn't need to be -- not a note or a beat out of place. The sound design is impeccable, and the album functions just as well for immersive home listening (particularly good on headphones) as it does in the club. Much of the album is built on the same themes -- immersive subs, ghostly washes of synth, functional percussion. But it's no less powerful for that. The title track immediately plunges the listener into a steely, dystopian future with thudding kicks, a growling, chugging, monotonous synth line, and fluttering hats. Foghorn blares bubble up from aquatic depths, like a Soviet sub surfacing into a foggy Arctic seascape. It's intense stuff, and builds and builds into a serious peak-time floorfiller. "Grain" is one of the album's best tracks, with a thick, insistent, woody bass rumble, flickering percussion, and an iridescent sheen of almost subliminal synths. "Deep Breath" sports what sounds like an incessant, increasingly filtered siren, as though the alert system on the submersible is failing as you sink deeper and deeper into the ocean. In "Waves," a buzzing, metallic drone pursues you into a subterranean tunnel where droplets fall rhythmically from the ceiling into the water sloshing around your ankles. "Peace of Mind" delivers anything but, as you venture deeper into the labyrinth, where the structure vibrates and rattles around you and metallic insects chitter and rustle in the air conditioning. This track has an incredibly "organic" sound, something many electronic music producers struggle to pull off. Closer "Artemis" has an old-school, retro-futurist ambient techno vibe like something off an old Polygon Window album, with a pinging synth line and antique drum machine beats. This is a very good album that shows what rude health 21st century techno is in, and it should appeal equally to armchair heads and dancefloor strutters alike. ~ John D. Buchanan