Review Summary: The Shape of Electronic to Come
There has been a new resurgence in meticulous electronic music that is gaining momentum. The expression of microsounds and sound design have been brought to new avenues of exploration. One artists going down one of these avenues is Julien (David Winkler). Releasing the future-bass cybernetic monolith "Face of God" in 2016, the producer is known for crafting music with a vast soundscape that both yearns for a recent past and looks towards an potential future. His latest EP "Mercury" is no different, and may be his best work to date.
This will be a pretty short review, only because the EP is pretty short. At 6 tracks that mostly float around the 2-4 minute run-time, the EP is digestable. However within you will find chaotic and dense happenings. The first song, 'Dawn Pt. 1', sees Julien entering with a bang; a hyper-speed liquid drum and bass track that sounds like it came from the year 2000. While there is a steady theme of the futurism and urbia explored in the Y2K movement, it is undoubtedly enhanced and abstracted by modern production practices and sound.
Near the middle of the EP some more chaotic and IDM-based techno pieces are introduced. The production is sleek as hell; textural and melodic while keeping very interesting rhythmic patterns and ethereal atmospheres. This is the kind of music that plays at night as you overlook the interconnected city atop the roof of a neon skyscraper. We then chill out with the experimental club-track 'Precious Metals', culminating in the ending track 'Retrograde', which is a beautiful piece of aquatic, ambient-techno ecstasy.
"Mercury" ends up being everything one could expect from electronic music in 2018. It's complex, danceable, and the production reeks of digital plasticity in the best way. It is both cold and warm, and truly reflects an indifference towards transhumanism and prospects of the future, simply taking its place as a kind of observer to it all. Reflecting the uncertainties of the future without bias for any one aspect. The EP makes no bold claims and asks for nothing in return of its triumphant sonic achievement. "Mercury" provides only a fractured mirror by which the future is reflected back onto us.
