- The Sydneysider gets his topsy-turvy club music down to a science on his latest for Timedance.
- When Air Max '97 debuted on Timedance in 2019, it marked a bold step for the Sydneysider, condensing his colourful club music into the reduced framework of Bristol's leftfield techno wave. And he did it pitch-perfectly. Two years later, for Timedance's first release of the year, Air Max '97 hits even harder, taking his wacky, sometimes cartoonish rhythms and sounds and stripping them down into a barebones skeleton frame.
"Psyllium" is both one of the plainest and most out-there tracks in the Air Max '97 catalogue. It centers around a plain-jane kick drum, but all the other rhythmic elements land in weird places, lending it a herky-jerk feel, as if the beat was hopping on one foot. It's both bouncy and sinister, its staggered gait gradually transforming over five twisty minutes.
The flip, "Eat The Rich," best highlights the whimsical end of Air Max '97. The rhythm section, meted out in drum rolls, sounds like a mutant marching band before the LFO bassline roars in like a tornado. It's deliberately disorienting, the kind of bassline that makes everything else feel off-centre—think Fis-T's "Night Hunter"—adding a touch of psychedelia to what is otherwise a straightforward club banger. Between his penchant for odd sounds and arrangements, Air Max '97 is one of the most quietly creative producers in this techno-not-techno world.
Tracklist01. Psyllium
02. Eat The Rich