- Heady techno to get lost in.
- I'll be honest: my introduction to the Dublin-born, Ibiza-based producer Cici was through her recent RA Podcast. The dubby but driving techno of Damion Von Eckert as DVE is like a tasteful, if tame, starting track. But things take a turn as soon as we hear the warped Colundi scales of Aleksi Perala's "NL-L56-19-08690" slide into the mix. Like that mix, I had a sense that things weren't as they initially appeared while listening to the title track off Cici's debut EP, Extraneous. On "Extraneous," there is about ten seconds of straight techno kick drum at the start, which are about the only ten seconds on the whole EP where things feel straightforward. Things go lopsided quickly with eerie minor key chord progressions, bouncing synth bleeps, tinny snares and an absolutely ferocious breakbeat. It's a good summary of the record as a whole: Extraneous is an EP of techno filtered through prisms of the psychedelic.
For someone whose bread-and-butter DJ gig is working the day shift, beachside, at Pike's Hotel in Ibiza, the record is surprisingly dark, bordering at times on the haunted. "Katnip" is about as warm as a November gale whipping through an abandoned lighthouse at midnight with its twisted 303, spooky vocals and goosebump-raising synth twirls. "Go Trip" is a bit less ominous with a swaying bongo line, but the lost-in-your-head trippiness is more DJ Nobu than DJ Harvey as robotic synths snarl in and out.
With the exception of the breakbeat house of "Some People," every track on Extraneous has the bite of techno, but Cici harkens back to a slightly earlier era of European techno. There are none of the 140 BPM-plus tempos (each track clocks in around 128 BPM) or shades of EBM and industrial that have become synonymous with "European techno" in the past couple of years. I couldn't help but think about the original Berghain mixes in the early aughts from the likes of André Galluzzi and Ben Klock. That music was certainly tough, machine-cut techno, but it was also just a little bit funky as it chugged along south of 130 BPM. Cici's record has the same feel: she doesn't need to bash us with pounding kicks but crafts introverted and strange techno for the body and the mind.
Tracklist01. Extraneous
02. Katnip
03. Go Trip
04. Some People