Review Summary: a pillar of modern bass music.
Back in 2022, when NOISIA's final album
Closer marked the official disbanding of the group, it opened what the world thought would be a black hole in the cosmsos of forward thinking drum and bass (and its adjacent sub-genres), and rightfully so. Anyone who's at all acquainted with heavy electronic music in the 21st century should be familiar with their name, and it was clear that the proverbial torch needed to be passed onwards if they were to cease making music together themselves. Thankfully, the Dutch trio's knack for offering the best and brightest sound designers in their world a platform to shine has kept that gravitational force from collapsing in on itself. Through their ongoing work spearheading the record label Vision Recordings they've offered a platform for countless artists to incubate their talents and enjoy recognition for their craft. Producers like Signs, Noer The Boy, Aleph, Posij, Former, Tsuruda, The Upbeats, Mefjus, IMANU and many others have operated in the orbit of NOISIA's record label and the unshakeable influence it has on the scene at large. This is where another Vision Recordings alumni, Roeland van Rijnberk (aka Sorza) enters the conversation. A generational talent who initially made a splash on the scene as one half of The Outsiders drum and bass act, he showed immediate signs of potential greatness with astute and club-ready sensibilities. It wasn't, however, until van Rijnberk adopted the new alias and set out to produce as a solo act that we
really got to see the full force of his creative brilliance extend to fruition.
When he dropped his debut album
I IDENTIFY in 2021 on Alpha Pup Records, it was a far cry from any expected semblance of traditional drum and bass, and leaned more heavily into the realms of experimental sound design, emotive panoramas and halftime beatcraft that aligned more or less closely with leftfield artists like Frequent, Seppa and even Ivy Lab. From front to back it offered glimmers of brilliance as a fully realized and carefully crafted work of art in its own right, but nothing could have prepared those who were already tuned into his station for what
Pillars was set to accomplish.
All the elements that made his debut so refreshing, from the fatty chopped neurohop drops to the cinematic and captivatingly nebulous ambient sections are flaunted here, finely tuned (often down to the 30hz sub-bass range) and cranked into overdrive. "Visions of What Could Be" makes it immediately evident, opening the affair in grand fashion with symphonic swells that quickly descend into a mind-bending drop rife with organic bass frequencies and glitchy, staggering beat shenanigans. Onward to "Does It Hurt Me" we see Sorza go so far as to design his own microtonal scales and employ Albanian folk instruments all while scraping the mantle of this very planet for low-slung waveforms seldom rendered audible by the average speaker. It is within these opening minutes of adept audio debauchery that it becomes crystal clear he's intent on setting new industry standards of sound design acumen.
These shatteringly heavy moments of swaggering bravado generously pepper the album, and the cathartic songwriting that underpins them injects genuine and timeless emotion into their DNA - emotion that carries into the more atmospheric sections of the record seamlessly. "Take Me" in all its vibe-charged brilliance offers a slight relent without losing an ounce of energy, widening the view while keeping a sharp focus on the album's most essential tenets before the strobing vibrance of "Never" turns EDM sensibilities on their head to close the album's first movement.
Sorza, not content to rest on any laurels, throws a lot of different influences into
Pillars that keeps it fresh across ten tracks. Fingerprints of the bygone era between 2016 and 2019 when halftime drum and bass began to merge with experimental bass music (and take the scene by storm) are everywhere here, exemplified by the likes of "Dumble" and populating major elements of other tracks in fine fashion. Consolidating these underground club stylings with open air-festival energy is a difficult balancing act, but one that's well executed on this record. "I'm Here" is a tasteful yet sonically gripping proof of fact, melting huge synth leads into a tune that honourably takes early-2010s melodic dubstep ideology and pulls it straight into our current timeline with high resolution detailing. It really is a thrilling journey all the way to the end of the record, and one that could only be so graciously assembled by someone who considers themselves a composer first and producer second.
All of this isn't to say he does things no other producer working in similar circles can do, it's just that he generally does it all a bit better, and pieces the elements together like a true visionary with a polished lens affixed to a strong sense of album narrative. The encompassing halftime leanings instantly harken back to some aforementioned namedrops, but the nuance, heartfelt sensations and attention to detail are what truly thrust
Pillars beyond the pale. These elements make the album easy to love, and the effortless weaving of intense feelings into earth-shaking physicality only adds to Sorza's ingenious craftsmanship, adding tangible magic to moments like the intensely emotional progression of "Hiding In The Sea" as it drops into a dancefloor-melting climax late in the game. Everything looks as beautiful up close as it does from afar, and there's not a wasted moment on the runtime because of it.
If
Pillars has one very minor sticking point, it's that it could be longer. There's a really fantastic showing of restraint throughout the record that ensures every juncture's impact is maximized, but a few more bangers to flesh out the 35-minute duration would have been a welcome addition, especially considering the brilliance of what's already being served. It's really a simple matter of having something so good that you just want more it. Nonetheless, Sorza's sophomore effort is a genre-bending and gravity-defying blend of everything the modern bass music scene needs and loves, executed in a way that could render it nothing short of a classic. Where he goes with his sound from here is anyone's guess, but judging by his track record, the trajectory is firmly vertical.
