A Closer Listen
Some of our favourite records grant us the sound of a perfect world. Ephemeral soundscapes transport us to an idealised space. Equilibrium and wholeness are valuable features of such art. And yet, we are also drawn to the aesthetics of the imperfect. Atonality and dissonance show us a reality we recognise. Fracture and fragmentation have a beauty of their own. Even with synthesised sound, humans choose to replicate this attraction to defectiveness. Electronic music has the potential for flawless precision, free of human error. But often it is the glitch or the fault line that captures the listener’s attention. Two recent albums perform a kind of sonic kintsugi, celebrating the cracks and showing us the joins in their golden veins of sound.
The work of Helena Hauff and Kris Jakob performing as Black Sites, R4 is the first full-length record from a collaboration that began more than a decade ago. Released on the legendary Tresor label, R4 has an irresistible techno sound whose charm comes from contradiction and imperfection. The opener has an ominously slow beat, like a lumbering behemoth all the more menacing for its lack of hurry. Its arsenal comprises the metallic crash of railings, distorted bass pulses, a frenetically low-tone synth loop, and the maniacal song of a possessed modem or Stylophone. Some later tracks adopt this swaggering pace, while others settle into a more familiar four-on-the-floor. Elsewhere, percussion takes the form of a dampened flutter, or the persistent rattle of a mechanical snake. When the bold dancefloor numbers appear, the beat snaps, not crisp and clean as a seasoned twig, but with fibrous resistance of a sapling. This is music with the imperfect vigour of green growth.
Around the beats cluster a diversity of sounds. Echoey, staccato synth and squelchy ripples of acid chase each other beneath the giant metronome. Cosmic details rush past. Retro laser beams are discharged in a fusillade. Synthesisers beep in morse code. Hi-hats drift in and out of distortion. Incoming broadcasts squawk and rumble. Short, helter-skelter melodies tread across industrialised textures. Hints of warm chord progression act as a foil to the noisy artificiality. Whatever the ingredients, Black Sites allow for mutation in their sound. Components in a track can arrive and depart swiftly, or morph in and out of new shapes. The interplay between sounds can progress with the needs of the dancefloor. But the most exciting moments follow their own internal, uncodified logic.
Released on Opal Tapes, Refractions is the second album from Baltic artist Elll. This is an album of sinister atmospherics, subterranean bricolage, and industrial textures. Its fundamentals are deep and bassy, set to reverberate through a Latvian sound system near you. However, where beats do appear, they aren’t built for dancing. Even the most drum-driven track is a slow buildup against a droning foghorn backdrop. The beat soon dissipates into a soft tapping amid a cloudy mass of tones. Elsewhere, grainy ambience swells around a restless clatter, the start of a breakbeat cutting out prematurely. Bouncing, bassy thuds hit like a ball against a wall of static. Mechanical reverberations take the shape of a distorted pulse, like an object striking an amplifier lead. The final and longest track introduces a slow beat amid pulsing, fizzing tones and rising notes of ambience. Every kick of the beat leaves sonic artefacts. A faint crackle grows to a disarming judder of the subwoofer.
Refraction is the bending of a wave as it passes through a substance. A signal passes from one medium to another, being altered in the process. It seems a fitting description for Elll’s style. In “Refraction 2”, the crackling imprecision of playback offers both a textural and percussive material. A series of possibilities interface with the track before audibly disconnecting. When everything cuts out, we are left with 40 seconds of interference, like a locked groove at the end of a record. “Refraction 5” emerges from the wobbling aftereffect of a repeated impact – like ripples across a speaker membrane. Buzzing and humming seem circumstantial, but they grow to a tremulous digital pool. Just as water refracts light, Elll’s music transforms abrasive sounds into structures, emotive shapes, and living dramas. Interference and feedback are built into an accumulating soundscape, a sense of pattern spun from threads of chaos. (Samuel Rogers)
Wed Jul 23 00:01:14 GMT 2025