- Weird, wonderful techno.
- Vladimir Dubyshkin is proudly touted by трип as the youngest artist on its roster. His barreling style of techno—often reaching 135 BPM or above—captures a sense of irreverence. Cheerful Pessimist, the Russian artist's first full solo record for трип, sounds like it was made under Nina Kraviz's tutelage, with its stark atmosphere and reverberating vocals. The five-track EP is suitably out-there for the label, but it's also one of трип's most straightforward records in recent memory, lunging out of the speakers with hardly a breakdown in sight.
"I Decided To Fly," "Rooyggbiv" and "Belissimo" are the tracks that sound most informed by Kraviz's style. Spoken-word vocals buzz around the rhythm, while the melodic elements wiggle and warp. "Belissimo" has some of the EP's best sound design, with a lead that sounds a bit like ripping velcro, along with drum patterns that switch up like outfit changes.
Some of the other tracks are less dynamic, like "Pigeon Epilepsy," which is basically a blunt-force weapon, while "Machines Behave Badly," with its lead chattering like the garbled ramblings of a robot, hints at трип's recent proclivities towards face-melting trance and gabber. The wonderfully staggered broken beats on "Rooyggbiv" aside, Cheerful Pessimist isn't as diverse as Dubyshkin's two-part outing on Macro, though it sounds primed for трип: fast, dizzy and weird as hell.
TracklistA1 Belissimo
A2 I Decided To Fly
A3 Machines Behave Badly
B1 Pigeon Epilepsy
B2 Rooyggbiv