Alex Cortex - Near

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  • How might the world end? In the four-part THE END IS NEAR series, Killekill's Vanta Series sub-label explores this increasingly pressing question. A noxious acid techno record from Dez Williams suggested nuclear apocalypse (or its irradiated aftermath). Kamikaze Space Programme's four-tracker might represent the steely churn of mechanised total war, and EeOo's twisted hybrids conjured some kind of biological weaponry. The series finale, from the German veteran Alex Cortex, brings to mind something less grisly but no less terrifying. Its two techno tracks—high-intensity tools of the Jeff Mills school—suggest a meltdown of information infrastructure, their frantic atonal synth loops mimicking flows of data gone haywire. The results aren't pretty. On "Mindconcern," a recurring bell-tone sounds panic-stations while staccato synths scrabble desperately to escape. The faster "Troy" is even more deranged, its sinewave holding-pattern shrieking along in the low 140 BPM range. Every now and then another synth line swerves across the mix in disregard of the track's barrelling momentum. When things get this bad, it's every synth for itself.
  • Tracklist
      A Mindconcern B Troy
RA