Happy New Year everyone!
In usual 5:4 fashion, i want to start the new year, in the wake of the festive season’s (over-)indulgences, with an exploration of some great music that you can obtain completely free, gratis and for nothing. Though it should be stressed, if you want to, you can offer as much remuneration as you see fit. So bear that in mind.
To begin, an artist i’ve circled around for many years, Techdiff, nom de guerre for Sheffield-based musician Dave Forrester. His work as Techdiff is rooted heavily in the world of glitched electronica, IDM and breakcore. i first came into contact with his work via Hecq & Exillon’s 2011 EP Spheres of Fury, for which he provided the ‘Stochastic Process Remix’, which for me ranks among the most purely exhilarating bits of white-hot beat gymnastics i have ever heard. That led me to explore further, discovering his EP The Black Dog Released, which came out the same year, and his debut album Coronation of a Cursed King, released in 2007.
In 2012, Techdiff brought out his second – and, to date, most recent – album P.Conv, which in some ways represents best the cool, sleek demeanour of his work. Opener ‘Elcolux’ has precisely the same vibe as the original version of ‘Spheres of Fury’, driven by a surly, shuffling dubstep pulse rippling with energy. It thus has a lovely sense of fast and slow simultaneously – something of a feature of this album overall – twin perspectives that make for an interesting physical reaction. The quicker material is obviously where the interest truly lies, continually shifting and shuddering according to new beat configurations. It’s restless and convulsive, yet despite use of reverb it’s somewhat enclosed, like dancing in a confined space, or as if the limits of its soundworld were defined by the boundaries of our own personal space.
Even more compelling is ‘Gofair’, which follows; again the fast-slow, but more polished, more focused, and more extreme. Now the coldness of the beat choreography is almost clinical, scalpel-sharp, slicing time into ever finer divisions over a juddering pulse. Opposite this, book-ending the track, are periods of gentler ambient drift, moving away from its spastic, staccato non-melody in favour of warm chords. ‘Thirteen Acres’ goes the same way, a gentle starter leading into a punchy main, echoing the ultra intricate focus, and again offering different perspectives on tempo. An integral part of that focus i speak of is static harmony, partly present, partly implied, the product of buzzing bass fragments and oscillating upper notes. As elsewhere, everything is held in place, wildly active yet pivoting around a fixed central axis. ‘Zero Moment Point’ picks up where it leaves off, seemingly shifting into a lower gear even as the beats tremble and paroxysm – disarmingly simple for a while, only to ripple with chaos later – garnished with gentle arpeggios. It might sound odd to use a word like this for what could be regarded as pumped-up electronica, but caught between its twin fast /slow attitudes, pummelled and lilted, there’s something almost restful about it. Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee, perhaps.
Considering how highly i rate Techdiff’s aforementioned ‘Stochastic Process Remix’ of ‘Spheres of Fury’, it’s slightly disappointing that the track ‘Stochastic Process’ isn’t the same but appears to be an earlier or alternate version of it. Structurally it’s identical – and, structurally, it’s just brilliantly effective – though it’s striking the extent to which it seems to be pulling its punches, not leaning into the somewhat manic frenzy of what i’m assuming is the final version on the Hecq & Exillon EP. That being said, in all important respects it’s essentially the same, and that makes it pretty incredible by anyone’s standards. Again the pivoting while the beats jitter and spasm, though here there are distinct episodes where the emphasis alters. Its most glorious moment is the final gear change where, following the most tantalising of bridges, the tempo jumps to double speed and propels on to the end, climaxing in messy beat-strewn disorder.
Two tracks adopt a less focused attitude. ‘Decommission Procession’ is similarly active but much more limited in scope, going through the motions in an obsessive, single-minded way. Precise but aloof. Whereas ‘Xkiysa Icwe Olrxgln’ is the one instance on P.Conv where Techdiff eases off and indulges in some harmless, laidback ambient electronica. Pretty but absent. ‘Sentience’ eschews beats completely, instead exploring a sequence of gong-like impacts with complex resonance, within which small-scale wisps of sound shiver and slide. Unlike the incongruity of ‘Xkiysa Icwe Olrxgln’, this sounds entirely in keeping with the rest of the album, a different aspect of the same pristine, electronic mindset.
Alongside ‘Gofair’, the other highlight of P.Conv is the evocatively-named ‘Positronic Meltdown’, a veritable feast of glowering bass and chrome percussive clamour (or should that be glamour?). These are the twin primary colours of its soundworld, driven along at speed, with not even a hint here that anything could be simultaneously heard as slow; it’s quick and unstoppable, shape-shifting on the fly.
Released by Ad Noiseam in November 2012, P.Conv is available as a free download from Techdiff’s Bandcamp.
