- Typically adventurous and dextrous drum tracks from a club music master.
- Nervous Horizon, the label founded by London-based producers TSVI and Wallwork, has been responsible for some of the best dance floor EPs of the year, including ultra-percussive records from SIM (Terminate) and Ehua (Aquamarine). So when I saw that TSVI was due for a release following last year's collaboration with object blue, I didn't know what to expect—but I knew it would bang hard.
With a global outlook on electronic dance music, TSVI's Sogno EP draws from everything from dubstep to dancehall to his Italian roots, which makes it genuinely enjoyable to listen to, even outside of the the club. (Us nerdy music heads, we love a bit of context.) It's mad to imagine that this entire EP was written over three weeks last summer, when the pandemic had consumed most of the feelings anyone had for anything, and the impending doom and uncertainty left us living more in our heads than we would like. Seizing this opportunity to find out what on earth was going on in his head, TSVI's EP became a personal inquiry into Italian poetry, altered states and ASMR as a sort of coping mechanism.
"Modulatrum" opens up the release at 91 BPM. The slowest track on Sogno, it still packs a punch, with an agitated build-up and disjointed, distorted melodic motifs. The title track, on the other hand, is a peak-time tune. Forget that 130 BPM stuff, this is where it's at. Once again showing us his expertise at layering drums, "Sogno" is tight, sharp and full bodied, driving forward without ever looking back. "Sospiro Sospirando" is a welcome surprise, where whispered vocals draw you in before dissipating into a galvanizing melody—it feels like two tracks in one, fusing two different states of mind.
"Reflex," where TSVI joins forces with Randomer, is a side of him I haven't seen yet, and I rate it a lot. It starts off in the 95-to-100 BPM zone, delving deep into your psyche, enticing in a sexy way, featuring TSVI's trademark drum patterns and a big synth melody that feels like 100 percent Randomer. My favourite—something I'll be using to scare people on the dance floor—is "Compos Mentis" with SVBKVLT's Seven Orbits. It floats through different genres, starting as dubstep with elements of kuduro and reggaeton before circling into techno. At points, it's eerie and unnerving, if you've ever been that anxious person in a club at 4 AM, it's an almost dissociative feeling you'll recognize. Like the rest of the EP, it's controlled and precise but still invites you to let completely loose.
Tracklist01. Modulatrum
02. Sospiro Sospirando
03. Sogno
04. Disturbo
05. Reflex feat. Randomer
06. Compos Mentis feat. Seven Orbits