- Chymera’s ‘Ellipsis’ is capital M massive, the type of track that should soundtrack the moment when the hands go up and the mouths go open. It’s a distillation of what Chymera’s music has been about for the past few years—and it almost demands he starts anew creatively. Quite simply, it’s what he does—perfected.
What Chymera does is make melodic techno that, through its devotion to the hook often reminds you of the dreaded T word. (Trance, for those playing at home.) ‘Ellipsis’ isn’t trance, surely, but it sometimes make you feel the same way. Its synth line simply continues to go up and up and up, almost unbearably so, even while—in actuality—it’s doing little more than repeating itself over and over again. About halfway through, it’s joined by long, sweeping chords that shove the song into epic territory. There are other elements: a wordless vocal that echoes beautifully, a beat that marks time ably but without distinction, a competing synth line that pushes the main theme to even greater heights. All of them, save the last, is inconsequential. You sense that if you took everything else away, you’d be just as transfixed.
There’s also a B-side called ‘Eulogy’, and it’s actually pretty good. Darker than the A-side, Chymera’s typical undergirding chords roil rather than uplift. The synth melodies are brooding, instead of hopeful. You could play it anytime in your set, I suppose, but that might require you flipping this thing over. Which I wholeheartedly oppose.
TracklistA Ellipsis
B Eulogy