- Ambient-not-ambient that highlights the Timedance founder's considerable sound design skills.
- For someone who's so good at DJing for dance floors, Batu's growing interest in downtempo music might seem surprising. Last year's debut album Opal put his considerable sound design skills towards sketches that felt like actual drawings—inspired by geology—than proper songs or club tracks. The party and label he established after Timedance, called A Long Strange Dream, takes this direction even further. The second EP on the label is sparser and darker than Opal, focusing heavily on textures white space. It's not ambient in terms of being relaxing or laid-back. Instead, Batu uses those textures—their sharp edges, shrill frequencies and reverb vapour trails—to startle and leave an imprint on an otherwise stark blank canvas.
The centrepiece of half speed is the eight-minute "flown," whose assemblage of elements, including acid leads, harp gilssandos and an ever-pulsating sequencer lead, is admittedly familiar. (Think Tangerine Dream meets Pete Namlook.) But it's the emptiness of Batu's soundscaping that makes these tracks feel huge and all-encompassing rather than modest. Take the way the synths squeal and trill across "the fifth." This track is little more than a repeating keyboard riff and a pitch-bent synth riff that shoots across the stereo field like a laser beam, but every contour of the synth, the way it wobbles in midair, is only emphasized by the blankness around it. As with the startling, drippy synths on "seams" or the harpsichord-like vamps on "half speed," what might seem like the most basic of elements become profound in their own way. Much like how Batu wields drums and sharp, staccato sounds in his club music, on his ambient work humble motifs are elevated to a level beyond background music. It might not be traditional songwriting, but it's something close to it.
Tracklist01. seams
02. half speed
03. flown
04. the fifth