Applescal - A Mishmash Of Changing Moods

  • Share
  • Ah, the techno wunderkind. After several digital releases on labels like Manual and Groove Collection, Holland's Pascal Terstappen, AKA Applescal, was awarded the nation's Grote Prijs for inspiring musicians in 2008 at the tender age of 20. A year later witnessed the release of his promising debut album on Traum, A Slave's Commitment. Suddenly, astride widely positive reviews—including one right here at RA—many believed that the Cologne label had located its next fresh face-of-the-franchise figure. De: Bug even proclaimed him one of the breakthrough artists of 2010. Perhaps a lot to heap upon a noted recluse of only college-grad age, right? Fortunately, Applescal seems capable of shouldering the burden. Now, not a year after his debut's release, he returns with his follow-up, the perhaps too-literally titled A Mishmash of Changing Moods. For the most part, it's a similarly assured, evocative mixture of electronica, fleecy kosmische textures, and aerial techno moodpieces. Two records in, it's becoming increasingly clear—and increasingly welcome—that much of Applescal's talent may well lie in how cohesively he assembles allusive bits and pieces into a swooning whole. A Mishmash of Changing Moods recalls, variously, Warp icons like Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada, Border Community acts like Ricardo Tobar and Fairmont, or even the day-trip shoegaze of Ulrich Schnauss. "Dialeague" is a bright, sturdy bit of electronica, a shimmery synth melody submerged beneath rushing atmospherics, while "The Key of Genes" grinds across a stubby beat and grainy, soft focus synth warbles. "MC Iron" delves much deeper, a pulsating dead-night trance cut that almost growls as it unfolds. But it's the album's centerpiece, "The Storm Is Yours" which really shows Applescal's command of the bedroom epic. Atop blocky, clicking rhythms, several shadowy synths entwine before the track bursts into its swirling psychedelic melody. It's a "big" tune, arms thrown wide, but lacking the gauche, hammy overtones of genres like psytrance that operate in tempers of enormity. But the title refers to Applescal's attempt to widen his emotional and sonic reach, and it's in his trials to introduce new BPMs and tenors to the work of his debut that sometimes show him fumbling. "In Theory" stumbles and trips like a wino, a woozy uneven beat and clashing interlaced synths; it sounds like it's dissolving even as it grows, a self-conscious aping of Richard D James. Both "Roofs of Heaven" and "The Flop" meanwhile are the record's biggest missteps, trading in bleak dance-rock tropes with crashing trap-kit rhythms and groaning feedback murk. They're forceful and ill-considered in comparison to the mannered creations we've already come to expect from Applescal, even if they're not enough deadweight to sink what's overall another minor accomplishment for the 22 year-old. De:Bug was right: Applescal's going to breakout. They may just have gotten the year wrong.
  • Tracklist
      01. The Curle in Me 02. A Former Curse 03. Dialeague 04. The Key of Genes 05. MC Iron 06. IB OK 07. In Theory 08. Roofs of Heaven 09. The Flop 10. The Storm is Yours 11. Observing Enlightenment 12. Black Spirals 13. Her Foreverness 14. Door Weer En Wind
RA