- An electrifying LP from one of the most exciting producers in New York dance music.
- Ayesha once described her music as "body over mind." The title of her debut album, Rhythm Is Memory, makes an equally intriguing aphorism. She creates club tracks based both on how she feels inside of her body and how different rhythms make her body move, which explains the wide-ranging style of her music. You can tell she grew up on UK sounds—and the sheer physicality of it, like the sub-bass on an old Tectonic record—though there's a distinct New York techno thread running through it all. Ayesha is home on Kindergarten Records, a Queens-based label responsible for some of the most dynamic and creative club music coming out of the five boroughs. Her debut album is a fierce mission statement, folding in the lysergic energy of psytrance, the thud of dubstep and the ripple of techno into nine muscular tracks.
Speaking of psytrance, "Tactilia" is an early highlight that synthesizes all these influences into something new. It bounces on its feet like an expert kickboxer, as vocal grunts spirit across the stereo spectrum. The focus is on a ridiculous, almost infuriating boingy sound, somewhere between a mouth harp and a didgeridoo. The synth patch uncoils and gurgles as the drums put it through its paces. The rhythm eventually straightens out into something a little more straightforward. It's the kind of fascinating club cut that can make you feel out of breath just by listening to it.
Ayesha's tracks are full of textures that wrap around the otherwise thudding, sub-heavy kick drums. "V7" has a pneumatic thrust—what could either be the sound of a choir or a vacuum cleaner—while "Play" has the kind of rattling, frayed wire sounds employed on recent festival hits by artists like Karenn and Verraco. But while you might call this music techno, it's hardly ever that simple. The stagger of the drums on "Roll" is truly bonkers, with an LFO bassline coiled up into a three-note sequence that lands in all the wrong places. It creates the illusion of dubstep. The heaving, descending melody and groove of opener "Pre-Dawn" wouldn't be out of place in a G Jones set.
The most intriguing tracks on Rhythm Is Memory are smack dab in the middle, combining the current vogue for hardgroove with signature Ayesha touches. "Lurk" is taut and hypnotic, but more psy-style bass groans lurk underneath while hoover stabs hit like strikes of lightning. The percussion is arranged so that the toms and hand drums hit just after one another, which should command some interesting shapes on the dance floor. Then there's "Tunnel Visions," where Ayesha goes straight for the jugular with a big-room rhythm section you could imagine at Time Warp or Awakenings. It's an unrelenting LP that can be a lot to listen to all the way through, but features some of the fiercest music of Ayesha's career, a level-up for one of New York's most exciting producers.
Tracklist01. Pre-Dawn
02. Tactilia
03. Play
04. V7
05. Roll
06. Lurk
07. Tunnel Visions
08. Mother Tongue
09. 2008