- Stefan Goldmann's Macro imprint has thus far built a formidable catalogue of strange dance floor music, tracks that—had this been the early '00s—would've ended up slotting neatly into Mille Plateaux's austere, theory-driven techno. There are no footnotes to Macro's releases, however, leaving listeners with only the plateaus, and Raudive's first release for the imprint has plenty of them to unpack.
Raudive uses the same avant classical building blocks that Goldmann often employs to construct his own tunes, but instead of molding them into discrete hooks, they're used as disruptive forces. "Cone" has a solid house groove that's constantly being put in jeopardy by glitch tablets, errant phonemes and a mighty saxophone riff. The beat pushes through despite the best efforts of everything going on—seemingly unaware of the beautiful mess that surrounds it.
"Khaki" and "Tul" follow in the same manner, with the former breaking the beat and the latter slowing it down. All three are cousins of "Christmas Tree," Raudive's contribution to The Poker Flat Tournament series, but hollowed out versions of that muscular, sinewy track. In stripping them bare, Raudive has produced an EP that is simultaneously singular and one that falls directly in line with Macro's rapidly cohering sound.
Tracklist A Cone
B1 Khaki
B2 Tul