Artist: CHPTR

Label: CHPTR

Release: Narrative LP

Release day: January 18th, 2019

The Narrative LP from CHPTR provokes a deeply engaging experience with one’s soul. The kind of healing, meditative music that the pair has become synonymous with is a necessary part of these tumultuous times. As you close your eyes and tune into the cinema of a happier place — where confronting and accepting vulnerability is a strength, see that it is possible to dream awake. What the dynamic duo of RVO and Deepbass is doing for the hypnotic techno scene is a duty to the human race.

Occasional Burst

We open a vivid narrative journey into the unknown with CHPTR  gently easing us in. In this sonic ultrasound, find yourself picking out elements of a world hurting and in pain, yet joyful and constrained.

Our journey begins in an ethereal realm, where birds take flight as a soaring bassline glides gracefully alongside a pulsating, twirling synth line. This buoyant treatise to the source of all healing is a testament to the kind of power hypnotic techno has as a force for good. In the deep space womb ultrasound that ensues within Occasional Burst, we can feel that there is life present. The roaring bassline proclaims it. And the bursting jubilance of fledglings brings a colourful end to proceedings.

A Bygone Era

With a soul-bearing intro out of the way, A Bygone Era proceeds to pick up where its goosebump-inducing predecessor left off. Mesmerising melodies, playful pads, racing percussion and a roiling low-end dance together in a starlit dimension.

We arrive in a new time and space continuum, complete with gyrating, bombinating jolts and fluid, Elysian gracefulness. A flight of fleeting respite ensues, mother (Simamaimara) and daughter (Chutama) reunited in rather bitter-sweet circumstances, their concern for each other and overall brutalism towards the world given the shock they were enduring begin an all-out war: brought out ever more vividly by the urgency of its trembling percussion and pounding kicks. Simamaimara survived several scathing encounters in previous times, right from 001 – 003 through to 004. Now, strapped in and poised on The Miadi — their stolen, getaway ship —alongside a curious and insatiably eager Chutama, she would have to be a guide through the risky world of their new, shared tale.

Incontrovertible Assurance

In the anxious bombardment of Incontrovertible Assurance, the rushed existence of a digital world can be felt beaming through. The hypnosis of the track’s fluttering bass and enthralling ambience will make it a favourite among the after-hours faithful. Dance floors beware!

Fumbling for the ship’s controls as the warning alarms and horns rose into a ne’er-shattering crescendo; The chase was on, The Miadi constantly accelerating towards hyper-speed as it’s pulsating stecometer blared out a jarring series of thumps. These were unnecessary reminders that together was the only way they could emerge alive. But the time for talk was gone. As wistful crackles, electronic drips and nostalgic chirps carried them into certain battle, they needed to be bold.  Victory was only assured in a reality filled with lies. Their nemesis’s imminent arrival, emphasised by the subtlety of his impatient rumble, sent their minds into a tailspin.

Torrent of Speculation

In the close of the first half of this evolving narrative, CHPTR delivers a heady blend of heaving atmosphere and shape-shifting aural cinema. Prepare yourself for an enchanting look into a world of pain and hope in quasi-equal, fiercely contested measure.

Their insatiable need to be right and save the day kept threatening to tip over their Jenga blocks of ever-slimming odds. The panicky screeching overhead, panning and strobing in frantic agitation, signalled Jinamwizi’s doomed arrival. Damn it! They took too long and now not even that thumping stecometer pulse can alter their chances of being caught. Unless, perchance, in this chaos of imminent ingress Simamaimara and Chutama were all for one. United under a more matured, familial bond — patient with each other and their shared anxiety. The time to stand tall against their oppressor had come.

As the overshadowing shape of Jinamwizi’s vessel descended into view, the very colour drained from their slice of space. Simamaimara had one last move up her sleeve and knew the risk to her being would have to merit the reward for her kin.

The Reimaginings

In the dancing drones and ebullient low-end of this cinematic journey through peril in outer space, follow the second part of our multi-sensory narrative review of CHPTR’s Narrative LP.

Clutching Chutama’s closest arm, Simamaimara strong-armed the terrified femme into her pilot seat. Straddling her, she proceeded to strap her in inextricably. Mournful tears trickled plaintively down Simamimara’s velvet cheeks. In their slow roll, Chutama could hear her broken heart’s song. As her own heart reached a suffocating pace, she felt her mother punching the “EJECT” button with finality. As her escape pod automatedly rushed to cocoon her, she heard the seizure-inducing bursts of Jinamwizi’s warp cannon — destroying Miadi and Simamaimara wih it. In the bleeping, crooning whistles of her hurtling pod, she unleashed a final, staccatoed cry.

Far Beyond Instinct

All lives have contemplative, sombre moments. It is to such moments that Far Beyond Instinct propels us — those spaces of dreamy stupor in which we introspect. With an uncompromising thud all through to remind you to stay focused, CHPTR wield a cerebral, techno mesmerism device.

In an initial analysis of her pursuer and their surroundings, Chutama could not understand why hers was such an ill-fated mission. But to end this savage pestilence Jinamwizi and retake the universe for the forces of good was imperative. Whether it was worth the great cost of her mother Simamaimara was something else.

In the heat of the sluggish pursuit through projectile hyperspace, her escape pod became a coruscating glint in the screens of her irate father. It was time, Chutama realised, to go well beyond her training. She had to find the path to a different perspective. In the heat of the moment against Jinamwizi, Chutama needed to refuse to kowtow. She would allow herself to become a victim of instinct.

Gravitational Collapse

Listening to CHPTR compositions, it is evident that focus is dedicated to achieving intricate balance between sounds and textures. Listen as the hair-raising speeds of hyperspace become our sonic reality on Gravitational Collapse.

Their pocket of interstellar super-travel came to an abrupt stopover and their destination summarily became Unyenyekevu. They would have to face the daunting task of being brought down to a lowly level. None felt they were good enough for the other. They were as variable as the twinkles of the stars in the eyes of billions that died in a conquest for a more comfortable life.

Call It A Day

In this heartfelt and longing ballad, Deepbass and RVO use their honed crafts to perfection. Call It A Day delivers an intimate dose of melancholy that could put any war-weary crowd — Chutama and Jinamwizi too — at ease.

Maybe, in truth, it may seem like this portrayal of events is overemphasis. But when looked at from the perspectives of its myriad victims and offenders, a trip back to the grounding home of Unyenyekevu was always important. After all, this is where it all began. Where all of them discovered their true beauty, looking at the flecks of sun-kissed raindrops in full, rainbow splendour:

In the gasping winds of excited drones,
weaving tinges from soulful chords radiating out of nature’s bowels,
One with the universe and it’s all.

In the midst of all this intergalactic warmth and cold,
We begin a new CHPTR, with a different Narrative.