- Gunnar Haslam is a prolific artist. Collaborations aside, he's released four albums and seven solo EPs since 2013. High output alone isn't interesting—it's often the opposite—but it's been engaging to watch Haslam herd his swarms of tracks into coherent groups. Last year's Kalaatsakia LP for The Bunker was his most compelling attempt yet, liaising skilfully between mind-bending techno and various forms of ambient. The New Yorker's latest project seems to take a different approach to crowd control. Kavalanic Languages is a label with a time limit: after one year, and five Haslam releases under various aliases, it will shut down. The first focusses on a single side of his sound, and more or less nails it.
Noxious techno loopers, veined with dissonant synth parts and fogged with delay, are the order of the day. Each track manoeuvres quickly into a Goldilocks zone and stays there, letting the subtle play of polyrhythmic sequences modulate the flow. "Sostanze" and "Atayalic" are more intense, while "Ururu" is slyer at first, before peaking with gaseous hi-hats and a late-entry clap. All three are extremely solid dance floor mind-melters. In fine techno tradition, an ambient track completes the set. "Ialysas" sounds like Autechre, or like one of those spiders from Lost In Space stalking across a microtonal keyboard. Like the others, it's expertly realised.
TracklistA1 Sostanze
A2 Ialysas
B1 Atayalic
B2 Ururu