The Athenian collective Pi Electronics converges a multitude of producers from various aspects of electronic music for Limitation, the label’s third in a series compilation. This offering consists of eighteen tracks and provides a meeting point where each composition style flows its dynamic to a unanimous aim: Exploration through individual constraints. Including a variety of sounds, the release found its way through our speakers in all formats on February 10th.
The enigmatic Peder Mannerfelt takes the lead with an abstract piece of deep-echo bursts. Cut My Step‘s twirling tones siphon those resonances into a pushing kick and heavy bass combo. From the appearance of those thunderous pumps onwards, a sudden, exhilarating air of invigoration disrupts the track’s pace. However, this sense of relief will not last long. Presenting a replication of the mind’s consciousness once getting into a REM-induced state of sleep, Devika grinds the noise surfaces and extracts speckles of atmospheric dust. Subliminal sonic patterns follow a hypnotic temperament, welcoming, in return, an ambitious, mental “invasion” of Paradoxical REM. Trying to escape from this trance, Archaic Intellect presents an amalgam of heavy-lifting beats, compromised to their core by electrifying industrial noise hues for Quantum Mechanics. Those hues form an aggressive pair with unsettling, AI-resembling, mechanical vocal samples as the excursion to a derelict spaceship continues. At times, the almost maddening repetitiveness generates a cosmic storm of quantum bits hitting our existence’s core straight from the universal chaos motifs. And then, the diffuse.
Known for his raw, industrial compositions, the veteran Adam X delivers a composition of perpetual drumming turbulence. Stripped off of any conventionality and emotional attachments, Raw Experience stands as a crude, sonic litany of monolithic proportions. Moving on to a more textured environment, The Force from TV.OUT contemplates the limitations over a rumbling, white noise. While hooked on those thoughts, their continuous movements in the corridors of our restricted perception portray an enchantment of booming percussion and strenuous, sudden hats. Through thought withering and revival, grainy background loops push out splashes of tension for an endless sequence of release and capture. Coming next from afar yet heavy on its rails, 3.14 introduces a part of his arsenal of industrial machinery for Muck Tolerance. An unsettling presence, nonetheless, further enhanced by a spray of cold melodies over sense-falsifying sonic cracks and tremors. Back and forth in their perennial quest, winds of repetitive arrangements carry clashing verses which blast their way through heaps of restraining conditions.
On a different plane, Thanos Hana extorts the energy from the emanating heat of a Ship On Fire for a warping, almost tidal, beat. The acoustic ripples reverberate wildly as the fast-paced tempo intensifies the anticipation for the overall progression. As the track unveils, quirky, hypnotic conjurations light up the movements of a mysterious, spiral trace on the way up to complete resurfacing. Severing ties with the previous tributes, At This Point from Ønly, depends on the ominous, pressurizing atmosphere introduced in its beginning. Steadily, the composition “escapes” through modern, quick-slicing patterns as heavy breaks, syncopated cuts, and hats run stubbornly in the background to keep the engines running. Before aggressively pushing on and eventually fading away in the distance, a drop marks a return to how things started, only at this time as a projection observing from a vantage position the limitations. Whether the upcoming ninth chapter in the compilation has a reference to the Cthulhu Mythos is not that clear. However, for those familiar, it certainly gives that vibe. Phallucipher summons the spiritless Creatures of Abstraction to perform their otherworldly midnight dance in the light of experimental ambient tones above a watery grave. While hearing their distorted vocal chant, the texture grows in time and space, imprisoning our minds in a proper Lovecraftian environment.
Back to fiercer patterns, Sam KDC‘s Dominion has demanding, rough, and steep staccato features. Its indomitable presence stubbornly marches on until the end with the assistance of feverish, noisy elements. The assault is completed with crushing, heavy-hitting bass and percussion, as it shakily balances on confusing string whirls. To tread on those new pathways, Crawler deploys from the prominent duo Interviews. A hypnotically heavy and thunderous piece, intending to explore and inhabit the dormant mental vaults. The caustic hues storm their interiors, expand, and spread corrosive liquids to melt down consequent layers of resistance and limitations. This sequence of three power-driven acts finalizes with Slave to Society‘s Biosphere. A view at the untameable flow that marks the chaotic variety of interactions in the sum of ecosystems. Calming “thin” intervals interrupt the levels of concrete force, agitating volume amounts, and buzzing groove, for a switch of pace that causes an unconventional mood contrast. In this structure of three, limits are deliberately forced to achieve compromise as a first step into co-existence.
Afterward, Alessandro Adriani invokes a cathartic air sweep directly from his electro habitat. Differentiated from what we already heard, Kybernetes gains total control and reaps fragments of energy from the so-far scorched, barren soundscape. Once gathered and cleansed, the fragments are transformed into a mildly acidic sonic force assisting the task at hand. Then, things take quite a turn of events, as Zevla with Yours is Mine commits to razing to the ground the personal barriers. So as to move on with crunchy, broken upbeats, the propulsive current initiated from an individual’s thought abyss acts as a transferring, absorbing monsoon. The drum galloping, an armament of continuous possession, methodically renders the other side completely surrendered.
An unexpected join of forces follows next between Ireen Amnes and Gramrcy and their collaborative track Bananabread. With “boiling” modular-sounding experimentations, the track firmly upholds its demodulating, rusty tempo. On its slowly gained velocity, the trace of the textural aftermath is as hot as it is coarse. For Eomac, on the other hand, the perception is a bit crustier. He presents his idea of an imaginary Surveillance State with a melody engulfed in a noisy barb-wire. Harsh, crispy piercings violate our under-surveillance beings, provoking our clarity with the support of delirious loops and arrangements in a frantic encirclement. A claustrophobic, unnamed, and passionate take nonetheless that envisions the fall of independent life.
For the final chapter, there are two softer, atmospheric offerings. Alekzandra’s Nois and Direction is a slow and warm vocal-synth track that directs via its balance “into the darkness”. Mesmerizing and hard to contain, it slowly liquefies and spirits us away from the previous surveillance circuit. Finally, the closure is a live recording of Forever from Monochromatic Visions. A tribute to the cold-wave era, in the sound of which one can feel its euphoric aestheticism, well-preserved under the wings of the mystical and entrancing nocturnal darkness. These sounds provide an undeniably comforting embrace as they stay faithfully close until the exit. Silent now, leaving with a varied taste and the curtains fallen, there is one last thing left to wonder about: Which track made you consider or explore your limitations?