- Techno at its anthemic, mutant best.
- Ever since his days as half of Cassegrain, Alex Tsiridis, AKA Rhyw, has merged the precise but psychedelic sound design of labels like Prologue with the aggression of producers such as Blawan. Recent releases for Shifted's Avian and Fever AM, the label he runs with Mor Elian came close to perfecting this—EPs filled with day-drunk staggering grooves and industrial whirlpools of synth. But all that was just a prelude to Honey Badger, where he perfects his self-described brand of "twisted mutant techno."
The album's centerpiece—a track that has been dangled in front of us mortals for a while now—is "Honey Badger." If you've spent any time near Techno Twitter or Instagram over the last few months, odds are that you've seen some festival or Boiler Room thrown into pandemonium by Tsiridis's madness. Everyone from Call Super to HAAi has been unleashing those distinctive metallic snare fills, sequenced at different speeds. "Honey Badger" is somehow both claustrophobic and cavernous—drums teeter atop each other while a wet synth snakes across the low-end. A kick shows up occasionally to try and calm things down, but it still can't talk the track back from the edge of pure percussive madness.
Nothing was going to top "Honey Badger," but the rest of the EP is worth listening to. My other favorite is the deconstructed trance of "Kirkhusa." Tsiridis employs a springy "Didgeridoo"-style bassline and swung drums for the record's funkiest number. The other two cuts maintain the intensity of "Honey Badger." "Foamcore" is its photo negative, an all-out drum machine workout underlined with short and sharp synth lines, while the delay on "Sharknado" creates a vortex for a rather sinister lead to dart in and out of.
In a recent post-mortem of the summer festival season, music critic Shawn Reynaldo lamented the loss of shared anthems in place of the countless bangers "released every week" but gone tomorrow. He was, however, tempted to call a "Honey Badger" an anthem in the classic sense. While it's easy to be cynical about how quickly we move through songs, this makes me feel cautiously optimistic about dance music in 2022. If techno this strange and wonderfully fucked-up is soundtracking festivals and reaching the masses, I think that's a reason to celebrate.
Tracklist01. Honey Badger
02. Sharknado
03. Kirkhusa
04. Foamcore