- Mercury is a fitting title for Gage's latest record. Where his past tracks were menacingly solid constructions, all hard surfaces and angular cross-beams, these six productions rapidly pool and reform to explore a range of ideas. Opener "Turbulence" is a Gage beat dissolved into puddles of gunmetal ambience, which swirl and gradually coalesce into deafening white noise. The similarly abstract "Gruellin" spatters viscous blasts of molten metal over sporadic percussion. These tracks wouldn't impress on their own, but they work excellently on an EP that focusses more on fluid forms than rock-solid club bangers. Gage is skilled at the latter, but Mercury broadens his music's scope in interesting ways.
Those stranger tracks are counterbalanced by more intense moments, including "Talon's Reach," a relentless drum track whose beats are processed so that they wobble and melt. Elsewhere, globs of melody add a splatter of silliness to proceedings. "Hyphema" and "Rochester Way" pair yelping toplines with jackhammer drums, each building to an extremely shrill climax; the latter, at five minutes, feels a bit clunky compared to its shorter companions. Each preps us neatly for closer "Oxleas At Night," which explodes triumphantly and then dissolves, leaving a few droplets of glimmering metal on the laboratory floor.
TracklistA1 Turbulence
A2 Talon's Reach
A3 Gruellin
B1 Hyphema
B2 Rochester Way
B3 Oxleas At Night