- Daniel Martin-McCormick's music has a natural drift, with sounds that dissolve, fade or lazily slip into different ideas. That happens on "Headache," a track from his new EP, V. It's techno built with churning psytrance-style synths, but halfway through a bright chord shoves its way in, gleaming like liquid mercury while changing the track's mood. What seems like a bad trip becomes celestial and uplifting.
Martin-McCormick's Relaxer project has balanced these extremes especially well. The first EP coupled hazy house with techno so fast that only the brashest DJs could play it. V starts with swirling melodies, psychedelic atmospherics and a hurtling sense of motion that drags you through all the strange details and trippy effects. "Blister Pack" offers a broken angle on this by amping up the psychedelics.
Then there's "Stevie," where every shape is distant and hard to make out, as if blanketed in fog. The drums are a soft murmur, pitter-pattering in uneven rhythms like water droplets falling from a ceiling. It underlines the "relaxing" side of Relaxer, a project that makes experimental house feel warm instead of weird. V is due to be the final Relaxer 12-inch. If that means the end of the project entirely, then it's closed on a fine note, with techno so lush that it's cozy.
Tracklist01. My Reminiscence
02. Headache
03. Empty Promises
04. Stevie
05. Blister Pack
06. Health Is Wealth