out now: Esker - Destruction Time Again [Voitax]

Artist:
Esker

Title:
Destruction Time Again

Label:
Voitax

Cat#:
VOI012

Release Date:
27th August 2018

Format:
vinyl & digital

Tracks:
A1.
Precipice

A2.
Fitz Roy

B1.
Seven Pitches

B2.
In Theory

B3.
Garnbach

Press Info:
Forgoing traditional melody and song-writing, Esker’s distinctive sound focuses on the interplay between noise, texture and rhythm. VOITAX is happy to present her stunning debut EP, which was assembled from various recording sessions over the past two years.

Formerly a drummer and guitarist in various bands in Melbourne’s noise scene, the influence of her past is evident in this record – a combination of processed guitar, mangled samples and bizarre, ghostly synthesis form a deep and complex sonic space.

The effect of almost a decade in Berlin is just as clearly heard in the EP’s thumping techno pulse. Wielded with a drummer’s feel for timing and meter, phasing rhythms, crunching lo-fi percussion and thundering kicks provide a solid backbone. Having become absorbed in techno culture, this is her contribution.

The EP opens with »Pleura«. Here, Esker masterfully splices together various field recordings and drum machine takes into phasing polyrhythms and shifting, distorted atmospheres.

»Tance« follows next, it is a haunted track, designed to float around the listener’s head. Delving deep into FM and granular synthesis, Esker creates otherworldly textures that sound like a cross between occultist chants and Whitney played underwater.

The title track is frustration funneled into artistic creation. Bedridden while recovering from surgery, Esker was stuck in a Berlin apartment for weeks as disruptive renovation work was carried out in the apartment next door. The result is a bizzaro, yet highly explosive mix of construction recordings and vengeful mic work, mixed in and out of a well-known R&B hit that has been decimated by heavy effect processing. Not your standard club hit!

The closing track »D-E-F« is a techno whirlwind. It is minimalistic in the number of sonic elements audible at any given time, but each is brandished with such devastating effectiveness that the pressure keeps climbing and climbing. Bleak, stark and foreboding, it is a nod to the heyday of 90’s warehouse techno and simultaneously, a step into imagined dancefloors of the future.

Listen: