Various Artists From Our Future Selves YGAM Records | The Electro Review

Various Artists
From Our Future Selves
YGAM Records
TBR: 20th March


This debut release from the non-profit collective at YGAM in Berlin is supporting Friends Of The Earth. Eleven artists donated tracks from their music laboratory to complete this full-length, twelve track LP. Expect rhythm, dance, techno, and exploratory sounds in this cutting edge and socially responsible music release. The club scene is observed from various perspectives and stand-points along the way as each unique composer offers a slice of their production repertoire for the common good.


First up is Nina Pixel with Species In Denial. It begins with distorted voice, splattered across a sonic sphere. Strange industrial sounds growl and swell behind, levelling up the track into an obscure romp through sonic synthesis. Plucks and blips scatter through, a surge of static energy washes over in a continual pressure. Intensity rises, the sounds build up upon each-other and rise in volume. Eerie atmosphere churns and vortices in strange spacial areas.


Next, a howling metallic sound bursts through the quietness. It shimmers on silvery axes as the gradual sonic pressure encapsulates the moment. Shimmering sounds and gusty bellows form a mixture of potential chaos. Sunken bass throbs beneath in drastic and long-reaching stretches of sub-tone. Rattles and shakers spurn in ambient shadows. More dreamy and sudden pushes of sound thrive in the scenery, strange samples splice and shudder together in abstract formations. Inglorious Fortune by Ospiel takes us deep and down further.


Rhythm makes its first real appearance as track three opens out. Otone's In the years of salt sands begins on an industrial beat infused with static crackle. Metallic drums and conks build a repeating motif through a slurry of subtlety. The rhythm breaks and reveals a finer layer, the distortive elements fade slightly and the chunky banging of the tempo rises a little further. A spherical reverb encapsulates the percussion, leaving short echoes in its tail-lights.


A muted rumbling spans the horizon as the following track introduces itself. Rampant taps and zaps build from the mattress of sonics to form structures of rotating and gleaming metalwork. Wooden pegs and electronic displays add their unique additive sounds to the mix. Fast paced dancing tempo and interesting spacial awareness for the individual parts unveils a room-full of beats and perspectives. Fast Dive by Zagam is a beat infused surge through quick beats and energetic progression.


Catartsis's Lamentations begins on a scatty tempo made of snaps, shakers, and hats. Abstract rumblings and clatters fill the spaces between the beats in a consistent and homogenous paste of sound. Bass begins to dominate, a rhythmic massage of notes throbs below the static and sound. Strange vocalisations make oddly shaped sounds, perhaps it's animal noises. The continual input of awkward and unique sonics makes an interesting sonic landscape for our ears to enjoy.


A slow, rumbling, and abstract notion glistens quietly in dank corners. Squeaks and mechanics spark into motion, shifting pressures and gentle pads briefly lock down in regular presses. Then, a surge of drums opens out. A thrashy and sporadic flow to the tempo leaves gaps in the rhythm that almost suck us in. Choppy and frantic beats unravel, the background noises adapt and swell to incorporate the new and uneasy energy. Transgression from Diasiva rolls out in burst and spurts of gentle yet evocative layers.


Nembus from Forest People starts with a ferocious rhythm. It crackles with high-end and rumbles with low. The beat progress, more percussion is added and layer by layer the evolution occurs before our ears. We're drawn in by a string of progressive beats which collide with the consistent tempo. Spirals of sound whisk up while plunging sonics drag us back down. The music fades for a short moment, a time for everyone to put their hands up in the air. Then the beat smashes back in with the same veraciousness it had before.


A dreamy string orchestral opens up, then strange digital vocal noises bubble out. The slow moving intro gives way to a thumping bass which surges behind a steam pressure valve. The combination of sounds is given new flux with a dose of hats and clappers. Another forward-facing and floor-filling rhythm pushes in. Echoing drums and wide-reaching howls of pressure gather in portioned beats and elongated bursts of sound. Quelza's Refracted is an adventurous journey through open plains of infinite scope.


Nina Pixel is back for track number nine. Cave Allegory simmers into being with strange fuzzy sonics. Rhythm builds gradually among garbled vocals and robotic noises. Drums break in a high tempo fury yet they're gated and prevented from dominating. So far, the background atmosphere takes centre stage. Odd sampled effects merge and crumble together as disparate entities find snugness among their angles. Rhythm then makes a run for it. We're given a high energy wholesome tapping which reverberates on many levels. This jumps and scatters its beats in regular tempo that splutters with its own weight.


Next, a spacious and deep wallowing of damp noise splurges out. Gongs and huge expanses coalesce as sudden beats and sonic injections form a static arena. Rhythm is revealed. A rock n roll beat on strange electronic drums gives us an exciting edge. The abstractions in the distance still grumble and growl in their ambient shadows. This keeps the warmth glowing and the energy eerie while the continually changing rhythm fractals out on its perpetual layers. At least I'm not a penguin from cplt is a gradually progressive and jazz influenced free-form number.


Granulated tones drift across the silence and emerge as a thundering bass. Isabassi's Exhumed Electronics pounds with static infusions and crispy flow while long-distance percussion swooshes across the bare-bones. Peeling sounds and the release of segmented pressures give rise to airy yet mechanical synthesis, rhythm flows in bass end beats and splattering highs that chop like waves. Snare finds a home, it resonates on the beat as various other tones fill spaces in between. An expressive and multi-tonal beat slams forward.


Track twelve starts slowly. At first there's next to nothing, then slight movements become distant sounds. These grow to become a humming matched with scratching sounds like digging through gravel. A wave on sonic emphasis then courses over the top leaving glowing energy buzzing in its slip-stream. The tones quieten, a rip of electronic charge breaks through, like wires being touched while the amplifier is switched on. These crackle and distort in various styles of semi-controlled feedback. Silence once more becomes a force within the composition, as subtle shifts in tone and input alter the way everything sounds. Fuir Le Silence Parfois leaves us feeling enchanted with Peinture Sonore D'un Paysage Mort.


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