Review Summary: raining all the time
Recondite’s newest EP feels like a blend of full-bodied presence and mental detouring. Opener “Capable”, for example, is engaging, club-worthy acid house, but bears a feeling of being fixated on far surroundings. It’s fitting for either 124 beats-per-minute floorwork, or head-lolling relaxation. The problem is, this avatar-like absentmindedness doesn’t really waver, and is unchallenged throughout
Corvus’ duration (at least, as far as the original mixes go). Lorenz Brunner’s tilt into house territory has led some to observe a sterilization of style, and, with the exception of Richard Donoso Clemency’s excellent remix of “Capable",
Corvus is an expectedly cold release. It’s like if
Skee Mask’s vision on
Shred was a supplementary video projection in a club background. We don’t see a visionary expansion beyond his work on, say, 2013’s
Hinterland, and the beats, while serviceable and catchy, are hardly Brunner’s most creative or multi-dimensional. That said, there’s something admirable in Brunner’s artistic streamlining. “Capable” and “Kauz” are fluid, efficient lead-ins to album highlight/title track “Corvus”. The track thoughtfully implements the language of crows atop the deep pulses, perhaps drawing from authors John Marzluff and Tony Angell: “
So much of what we hear from crows or ravens is inexplicable. They ring like bells, drip like water, and have precise rhythm. They sing alone or in great symphonies. Some of their noise could be music.” It’s uncanny how similar Recondite’s approach is to these sentiments, as his latest effort indeed chimes, drips, and hinges on precision; it occupies spaces of both loneliness and movement en masse.
