- Where deep trance meets DIY synth.
- Spekki Webu's Mirror Zone label has an interesting relationship with trance. The music it releases, both new and old, focuses not on the genre's rush of euphoria or big, gushing melodies, but the darker, twitchier impulses that run beneath it—you might call it deep trance, if you were particularly into taxonomy. Mirror Zone's new sub-label, Optic Portal, aims to delve into even further nether-regions, aimed away from the dance floor and at more experimental realms. (Case in point: this first release comes on CD, not vinyl.) Nexus Points makes for a stunning debut. Not only is it an excellent introduction to the prolific artist Production Unit Xero—more on him later—but a statement of intent that combines the texture and feel of trance with bold, cinematic composition .
Production Unit Xero is Portland-based artist Ramon Mills, a synth artist who has been releasing a wide variety of music, from the droney to the dancey, since 2001. His work is resolutely DIY and exists outside of scenes and trends, which is what makes Nexus Points so interesting. The album starts out slowly, with lengthy compositions like "Hymn To Orlande," full of far-off sonar pings and long, sustained melodies that shudder and creak. Mills immediately builds a dark, spacious sound world that the rest of the LP explores, gradually picking up a pulse with "Mechanus," whose stuttering drums and glitchy, rippling textures—like a string quartet pulled apart and bitcrushed—bear a strong and flattering resemblance to I Care Because You Do.
As Nexus Points slowly opens up, the percussive patterns morph and change, from the tunneling but sonorous drone of "Sirens Of Styx"—which sounds like a melting pipe organ—and the aqueous wobble of "Element," whose three-dimensional arrangement and detail remind me of early BT at his most cerebral. The peak comes with "Wards," which approaches drill & bass with its rambunctious drum programming, but even this is unusual: the drums are flattened and smooth, hitting with a tinny thud, as if it not to interfere with the lush atmosphere around them.
The album plays out with a careful narrative push-and-pull—towards the end, the nine-minute dark ambient epic "The Calm" is followed by an electro-influenced barnstormer, "Flash Step," and then another retreat into the darkness with "Contrast," where little tendrils of melody flicker like tricks of the light in your peripheral vision. Each new pass through his world reveals a different mood and atmosphere, but they're all united by the music's startling physicality, so immersive that you can forget you've spent almost an hour and 20 minutes in it as "Forces" ends the LP as quietly as it began.
Nexus Points is trance, but it also isn't: it's IDM, drum & bass, ambient and drone, all wrapped up in one cohesive project. It feels both retro and somehow unprecedented, the product of someone who's been making whatever kind of music they want to make for 20 years. I've always had a hard time putting a finger on what exactly makes Mirror Zone so intriguing, and Nexus Points handily outlines it, using trance as a jumping-off point for a one-of-a-kind trip to space that, if you're anything like me, you'll want to make again and again.
Tracklist01. Hymn To Orlandre
02. Reiatsu
03. Mechanus
04. Wings Of Ra
05. Syrens Of Styx
06. Element
07. Wards
08. Void's Crossing
09. The Calm
10. Flash Step
11. Contrast
12. Forces