Måla
Carnal Sense

Release Date: 2016 | Tracklist

I’ve always found ambient techno to be one of those genres that fails for all of the right reasons; the amalgam of two seemingly apposite styles succeeding only to strive mediocre when its ambition flies so high above. And it’s not necessarily an issue of incompatibility either; rather, it is more an issue of ill-conceived confluence: the two genres combined in such a way that they dilute rather than accentuate one another. In a lot of ways, it is as if the two styles are transformed in combination -- the steadily-pounding four-on-the-floor a mere dull throb, and the normally thick and textured washes nothing more than colourless veils, devoid of all but existence. Perhaps this is why Måla’s seemingly un-ambient technoesque first effort is so remarkable: it thrives where so many others do not, yet it does not stray so far from its characterless contemporaries that it bears no resemblance. The sparse beats are not so overtly domineering as their hyperactive and at times oppressive club-oriented techno siblings, nor so submissive that they become one with the wallpaper. Rather they straddle the fence between being driving force and accompaniment; the reverbed yet punchy percussion alert in its presence, and near-minimalist in its simplicity. But it is this simplicity, and this understanding of complementarity that allows the part-minimal synth, part-dronebient backdrop the ability to be so evocative. Lush synthscapes evolve and revolve about the thumping militaresque beats, occasionally incised by distorted vocal samples and distant feedback. Bleakness coalesces with blissfulness; and fleeting harshness with beauty in such a way that feels natural, and in all of its bite-sized glory, Carnal Sense manages to fuse what at face-value seems equal parts Cremation Lily, Radere, and Ansome into something effectual and altogether gripping in a way that so much ambient techno wishes to be, but rarely ever nears.

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3.4 great