- Six producers join forces to become a mind-melting, junglist jam band.
- D. Tiffany and uon's XPQ? label launched with a supergroup of sorts called Ghostride The Drift, made up of exael, uon and Huerco S. Their debut last year was a psychedelic swirl of sounds somewhere between techno, dub and ambient. Critical Amnesia outdoes it in every respect. The music is bigger and heavier. The group has expanded, with Russian producers Perila, Ol and Vtgnike joining.
It's the tension between the sextet that makes Critical Amnesia more than the sum of its collaborators. While the producers involved all make what you might call ambient music, Critical Amnesia is heavy and rhythmic. It sounds like jungle music being sucked into a black hole while trying its best to resist it. On the opening track "NS0S₁," breaks come in and out of earshot, and on "0DSN₁," it feels like every sound is fighting to be heard before it gets tossed into the abyss.
There's an incredible amount of detail amidst the chaos, like how the drums on "0SNS.B₂" sound like they're splashing in a shallow puddle, or the glints of IDM drill & bass in "0DSN₁." There are hints of dance music here: a thunderous sub-bass pattern holds "0DSN₁" together like sellotape, making a rhythm you can almost nod your head to while all the other elements go whizzing by. Where Ghostride The Drift was dreamy and fluid, Critical Amnesia is raucous and confusing, the sound of six out-there producers trying to one-up each other.
Tracklist01. NS0S₁
02. NS0S₂ (skit)
03. 0SNS.B₁
04. 0DSN₁
05. 0DSN₂ (inventory)
06. 0SNS.B₂