Einmusik - Ocean Bottoms Pt 1

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  • Einmusik's synths always have a particularly airtight feel. Not airless—there's plenty of life in them. But there's also something disconcertingly perfect about them, as though vacuum packed; the same goes for his music, generally speaking, with every sound in its right place, from the lowliest kick to a chromed high end that glimmers just beyond conscious perception. It's almost like a Platonic ideal of a certain kind of melodic techno. Things get dirtier on "Ocean's Bottom," and a little bit weirder, too. The grit is apparent in a beat designed to invoke Classic Music Company at its jackingest, right down to the apparent veil of needle-fluff that gives the beat its vintage allure. We're entreated to a betwitching little oboe melody, like an odd sapling of British folk music sprouting up from the cracks in a grotty Chicago basement. (Oboes, real or synthetic, are rarely a good idea in club music, but for whatever strange reason, they work wonders here.) Then, halfway through, the lead vocal sweeps everything away. Bluesy, full throated, delicately pocked by digital pitch correction, it sounds a little like R&B via UK garage, as do the backwards synth strokes below, bleating in a minor key. I have a hard time imagining that this couldn't go down like gangbusters anywhere from a Wolf + Lamb party—pitched down to minus 8, granted—to Luciano's Pacha residency; it's guarded and gregarious, woozy and surefooted all at once. "Biosphere" hits harder, thanks to its flailing open hi-hats; where "Ocean's Bottom" skulks, this one storms—albeit brightly, with flashing pianos and zig-zagging string arpeggios. Pumped up with a hint of filter disco, it's meant to sound classic; there are faint echoes of "Strings of Life," "Sunshine People" and a thousand other such brightly colored entries in the canon. But Einmusik's careful control of the mix also helps this one stand out from dozens of recent, retro-leaning tracks cut from similar cloth.
  • Tracklist
      01. Oceans Bottom (Short Edit) 02. Oceans Bottom (Extended Edit) 03. Biosphere
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