Anders Ilar: Nightwidth
Narita

Anders Ilar's high-quality Nightwidth compiles recent 12-inch tracks and sweetens the deal with some new exclusives. He traffics in funky, low-end tech-house that struts confidently and feeds the ears with all manner of textural nuance. A typical Ilar track juxtaposes darker atmosphere with uptempo beatwork: “Sand (In Your Eyes)” smothers a jubilant pulse with guttural bass, groaning washes, and malevolent nocturnalia; “Rourei” plunges even more deeply into a nightmarish zone though not so much that its core jacking pulse is derailed. “A Day Ago” encapsulates the divergent style by aligning an amorphous, horn-like smear with a crisp, clear-headed tech-house groove, though the piece's best quality is the beautifully glistening melody that gradually moves to the forefront. Elsewhere, percolating techno meets reverberant dub in “Black Numbers,” “Radius” anchors snappy click-house with woozy sub-bass, and “Oceanism,” “Dawn,” and “Clouds Are Made in Factories” flirt with submersive Chain Reaction ambiance. It's easy to underappreciate Ilar's material since it can float by inconspicuously but, when attended to closely, Nightwidth reveals immense detail, including lovely melodies that become nuclei around which spiral vaporous layers and micro-biotic noises.

January 2007