- Danceable industrial rhythms from the recent Drew McDowall collaborator.
- "To be honest, I don't have a lot of personal vested interest in club culture," the producer Nicky Mao once said. "What I do have is a lot of love and appreciation for electronic music, but I prefer to use it as conduit in which to communicate things that don't necessarily have to do with making you dance." The dense, evocative music Mao makes as Hiro Kone seeks to communicate complex ideas—her latest album, Pure Expenditure, was inspired by George Bataille's writing on capitalism. (The label describes the album's concept, captured in its title, as being a "release of surplus energy.") Yet one of the pleasures of Mao's music is that it's often quite danceable, because she rarely shies away from beats. Though her pieces can be abstract and impressionistic, there are usually distinct rhythms beneath the layers of atmosphere. With Pure Expenditure, her beats have become bigger and bolder, enhanced by industrial overtones akin to those on her recent collaborative EP with Coil's Drew McDowall.
The way Mao directs her beats gives Pure Expenditure a sense of purpose, distinguishing it from the airier tunes on her stellar first album, 2017's Love Is The Capital. Here, the rhythms often shape the arc of a track. This is most effective on longer cuts such as "Scotch Yoke (Parts I & II)," in which a hammering beat is at first dominant, but then gradually spawns thick, atmospheric sounds. What seemed simple turns into something dense and mysterious. A similar alchemy occurs on the title track, the LP's most multi-faceted beat, which inspires a tornado of metallic effects.
Tracks like those make it easy to think of Pure Expenditure as a non-stop rhythmic workout. But Mao is also adept at textural experiments. "Poortgebouw" is almost purely atmosphere, with shifting drones passing across each other like tectonic plates. There is a minimal beat on "Disoccupation Of The Sphere," but, as it skims the track's undulating synth waves, it seems to produce foamy trails. A less successful outlier is "Outside The Axiom," a more conventionally structured track, and the only track on Pure Expenditure with prominent vocals. It's hard to fault Mao for trying something different from the rest of the album, but Pure Expenditure is strongest when it's really letting off steam.
Tracklist01. Holobiont
02. Pure Expenditure feat. Group A
03. Scotch Yoke (Parts I & II)
04. Poortgebouw
05. Outside The Axiom feat. Little Annie
06. Disoccupation Of The Sphere
07. Truth That Silence Alone