NHK yx Koyxen - Doom Steppy Reverb (Diagonal)

NHK yx Koyxen - Doom Steppy Reverb (Diagonal) NHK furnishes the Diagonal family with his rudest, moodiest record to date, stalking the border between minimal techno, garage and Doom Steppy Reverb in his 2nd solo LP - a writhing follow-up to last year’s Hallucinogenic Doom Steppy Verbs 12” and the Program CD with Line. Containing seven tracks of brain-folding sound design and effortless, playfully ruffneck groove mechanics, it’s clearly his most focussed and deadly club record, one that puts experimental ideas at the service of the dancer and equally works as an intensely immersive headphone experience thanks to a proper subbass bias. It creeps up on you from the front with the lurking modulations of 1073+SNARE precipitating a seesawing synth lead that breaks into full breakbeat garage techno, before 1089S harnesses that energy into a swollen minimal techno roller which proceeds to rinse your head/club with arid flange and brace the booty for a wet, sloppy acid garage slammer called 1083-LO-OCT-Short (he’s really got a way with these titles). At the mid-way point, his minor key dub chords really come into their own, blooming in a super lucid maze of moire fractals on Y whilst the rhythm stealthily scissors its way into your tendons, bones, making the beatless respite of 1048’s pirouetting arpeggios all that more effective; but you can’t hide from the rhythm as it soon bends to pendulous 2-step technique and he wipes the ‘floor with coldest, steely techno stoicism on L. Job well done. Quite plainly, there are few producers who can place such a subtle, unique, and deadly spin on this sound, off the top of our head - Peder Mannerfelt, Zomby, Grain and Gescom among them... in boomkat

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