- Labyrinthine techno crafted from equal parts wonder and discomfort.
- Pittsburgh-based producer Davis Galvin has discussed how they take inspiration from the work of the Argentianian modernist Jorge Luis Borges. Their debut LP, Open, pays more than lip service to Borges, sharing some striking similarities to his short story The Garden Of Forking Paths. The story is a parable about accepting contradictions by thinking about the relationship between free will and time. At first, as the narrator wades through an "ever growing maze which would take in both past and future," he feels a sense of horror at its infinite expansiveness and his own powerlessness. But there is also the sense that, upon realizing that "the future is now" and that every decision has already been made, the narrator sees a world of possibility open up. Open is built on the same ideas. Galvin layers complex and sometimes contradictory sounds on top of one another, creating mazes of striking and occasionally jarring songs.
Open is dense, and lovely and unsettling in equal measure. Take the album's striking centerpiece, "Shiver." Galvin starts with two minutes of shrill, howling synths before a broken rhythm staggers in. But just as Galvin starts teasing a groove, they throw in some dazzling classical piano playing. It's both hair-raising and beautiful, a garden of forking paths as Galvin allows various motifs, ideas and sounds to knot themselves around one another.
On "Willows," Galvin uses the full stereo field to their advantage, with shiver-inducing synth bleeps and delayed snares plotting out a rhythm over a tense arpeggio. Where "Shiver" and "Willows" evoke the horror of The Garden Of Forking Paths, they're also balanced by the rich, ASMR-inducing textures of other tracks. The swelling opener "Puller With" uses muted guitar strings as percussion while a gooey synth moves like honey spreading itself through honeycomb.
Galvin is a central node of the famed Pittsburgh party Hot Mass and has been at the forefront forefront of pushing, as Andrew Ryce described it, "a sound that blends American house and techno with influences from garage and modern UK bass music." While most of this record is as removed from the dance floor as Galvin has ever wandered, you can still hear this new-school Midwest approach on "Crust Shift" and the skeletal "Incessant Incognito." "Crust Shift" is Bristol leftfield techno boiled down to its essence, where sub bass and hollowed drums are glazed with a melody somewhere amongst the bird trills.
Galvin has been busy over the past couple of years. Focusing on self-releasing music through their Bandcamp, they've put out everything from a melancholy dubstep remix of Ariana Grande to cerebral and intricate techno steppers. While the ideas on Open—from the sparse drumming to the anxiety inducing chords—have all appeared in various forms before, the album as a whole is something else. It resembles a line from another Borges work, a poem called Labyrinthe: "The galleries seem straight / but curve furtively, forming secret circles / at the terminus of years." Like Borges' galleries, this is complex electronic music that moves in unexpected ways and leaves you with a sense of the techno sublime.
Tracklist01. Pulling With
02. Willows
03. Latest Fruits
04. Shiver
05. Crust Shift
06. Incessant Negation