- Dubbed-out, groggy goodness on Animalia for fans of Cousin (who also appears here).
- The dubby, psy-laced sounds of Australia's underground have swept the globe in the past few years. Of the champions who transmit this certain strain of electronic music to hemispheres beyond, 2023 Breaking Through star Kia has been a steady beacon since she launched her label and party series, Animalia, in 2020. For the label's latest release, she enlisted Sydney's Command D, a producer who has released on staple Aussie labels like Pure Space and Body Promise while also hosting Park Dub, a daytime party held in different parks around the city. His four-track EP, Esc, combines natural themes and inspirations with sci-fi textures, a sonic collision of two worlds that seem innately opposed.
The duality in the sound of Esc reflects its title, a double entendre for escapism and the escape key on a computer keyboard. The serene pads and playful, bubbly synth melodies of the title track offer a blissful getaway, while the drums lend themselves to electro, a genre devoted to drum machines and robotic motifs. The pulsing bass below could be either the hungry groan of a giant marine mammal or the hum of an android charging its battery. The nature-meets-tech dichotomy continues into "0-zone" (a collab with like-minded producer Cousin), a submerged electro jaunt with cascading dub chords, muffled radar blips and gusts of whooshing air. "Cycles" is the only time Command D deviates from 130 BPM on the EP—a warm trip-hop track that eventually melts into ambient.
Command D has a true knack for delivering icy, textural synth work that could work on its own as mystical ambient music, but he always pairs it with just the right amount of percussion, whether club-focused or loungey. The heavy-handed dub echo on "Stat Point" could induce a smoked-out tailspin, but it's balanced perfectly by an ultra-satisfying tech house swing that really kicks into gear halfway in. Command D's production style may follow in the footsteps of Sleep D, OK EG or Andy Garvey, but the next wave of Aussie talent is forming, and the spectrum of spacey to heavy is widening on both ends.
Tracklist01. Esc
02. Stat Point
03. Cycles
04. 0-Zone feat. Cousin