A Made Up Sound - AMS007 / 008

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  • In dance music, success often comes with establishing a signature sound within a genre, which can become an excuse for doing the same thing again and again. Dutchman Dave Huismans has a trademark style, and he's gotten an impressive amount of mileage out of it so far. Few producers in recent memory have been as easily identifiable yet weird and unpredictable as his A Made Up Sound project. Each 12-inch finds new wrinkles, and the two latest from Huismans' eponymous label further twists his signature sound. "Stumbler" makes a fine case in point. Hobbling along, a modulating chord spreads across the stereo field—it's instantly familiar, yet there's no other Huismans track that sounds so exquisitely skewed. "Syrinx" is just as adept at the balancing act: it feels like an electro tune caught in a zero-gravity chamber, with crunchy synths and bleepy chords spinning around a drum track that might wander away at any moment. Treading on slightly firmer ground, AMS008 highlights more contrasts. "Havoc" is a jagged, hard-swung banger, but the sharp edges are offset by soft chords that skid from left to right, occasionally eclipsing the whole track. "Half Hour Jam On A Borrowed Synth" is the odd one out, with textures that are more brittle and glassy than we're used to from Huismans. It's still a typically offbeat jam, shimmying down his usual staggered scales. The title evokes images of Huismans exploring a new machine for the first time, and still somehow conjuring his sound. It's what we've watched him do for the last decade: subtly reinventing himself while keeping his music's core ideals intact.
  • Tracklist
      AMS007: A Stumbler B Syrinx AMS008: A Havoc B Half Hour Jam On A Borrowed Synth
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