- The romance between Bucharest's Cristi Cons and Berlin's DeWalta, two of minimal's slicker artists, continues with Dark Matter. It follows Cons's Perceptual EP, a twisted double pack released on DeWalta's Meander label in April. Cons returns the favour by inviting DeWalta to stretch out across four sides of wax on Amphia, the label he runs with fellow Romania Vlad Caia. Finding a balance between easygoing bliss and tunnelling psychedelia, DeWalta uses the extended space for four sprightly minimal tunes light on melody but heavy on bass.
"Spacetime" and "Gravitation," the package's brightest tracks, are on the first disc. Like Z@p's recent "Sendas," the former has one of those knotty basslines that seems to be in a constant state of flux, ascending at some points while getting deeper at others. A series of solemn synth notes gives "Gravitation" a sense of melancholy that's offset by a thumping bassline and cosmic pads, while a beatless piano outro makes it a poignant track to close a night with (as Raresh has discovered). The second disc is more abstract. "Dark Matter" is one of those subaquatic minimal tunes you only seem to hear when you're down to your last euro, long after you should've left a party, while "Causality" recalls Fumiya Tanaka with its squelchy percussion and vocal snippets, and added choral vocals.
TracklistA Spacetime
B Gravitation
C Dark Matter
D Causality