- Early releases from Premiesku, the Romanian trio of Livio & Roby plus childhood friend George G., were chugging exercises in exquisite detail, disparate elements coerced into agreement. Tracks like "Caracas" bristled with crackling, sleazy carnival propulsion, while straightforward floor-fillers like "Mistique" seemed capable of zapping away all clouds in its path. Analog loyalists, the three have recently taken to touring with a live show that's an entirely analog affair, wringing minimal loops and raising them to a hammering energy from their customized equipment on-the-spot. The new Premiesku full-length, Indirect, released on Desolat with executive producer Loco Dice, is a cozy extension of prior work marked by an admirable sense of restraint.
Indirect is an honest title: individual elements are engineered with such precision that each track conceals surprises and makes multiple listens continually transportive. As beats materialize, they just as quickly sputter and dissolve before you can grasp them: the regenerating cymbal licks and floaty synth clouds of "Geneza," an Orbital-meets-Luciano creation story replete with repetitions of "and then there was light," never quite assert themselves. A factory sputters and spews over a three-note Morse code swirl in "Discurs pe fundai," interrupted by sonar moans.
On "Mecanism LRG3000," robotic yearning scuffles with pillowy bass and shivering menace. While you can luxuriate in every drip, click and shuffle, the track stammers and stalls on a larger level. This inconsistency—that the audible formulation of an idea can be more interesting than its eventual regenerations—is Premiesku's biggest difficulty, but it's one they seem lucky enough to have mostly noticed in the editing room. On "E Codat," each broken bell and piece of ragged percussion is imbued with a sense of cosmic possibility. "In Mod Indirect" is a symphony of broken appliances slowly finding their way to each other among simplistic bass plunges, while closer "Vag" achieves a psychedelic minimalism, tentative piano peeking out, ready to smother bad vibes.
Indirect occasionally causes glazed eyes with the various dodges and backfires, but even the one-dimensional structures reward patience, as elements intrude and slide sneakily to the forefront. If anything, the album could apply more jolts of feverish energy. As it stands, Indirect is entrancing, the sound of industrious aliens leisurely mastering human tools.
Tracklist 01. Ceva care se multiplica
02. Discurs pe fundal
03. E codat
04. Geneza
05. mod indirect
06. Mecanism LRG3000
07. Tehnico-Stiintific
08. Vag