Article
Ten Questions with Nicolay

Albums
Aera
Apricot Rail
Darcy James Argue
Jeri-Mae G. Astolfi
Félicia Atkinson
Atom TM
Black Jazz Consortium
Borghi and Teager
Kate Carr
Jace Clayton
Nicholas Cords
Cosmin TRG
Benjamin Damage
T. Dimuzio / Voice of Eye
Field Rotation
Footprintz
Garnica
Stefan Goldmann
Good Luck Mr. Gorsky
Darren Harper
Chihei Hatakeyama
Jerusalem In My Heart
Marsen Jules
Philippe Lamy
Mary Lattimore
Linear Bells
Jay-Dea López
Andrew McPherson
Markus Mehr
Oneirogen
Fabio Orsi & pimmon
Quicksails
Simian Mobile Disco
Colin Stetson
The Third Man
Simon Whetham
Yuco

Compilations / Mixes
Art Department
Balance presents jozif
+FE Music: The Reworks
Ruede Hagelstein
Inscriptions Vol. 2
Rebel Rave 3
Your Victorian Breasts

EPs / Cassettes / Singles
Broken Chip
City of Satellites
Fescal
Isan
jffstnhs
Librah
Yann Novak
Simon Whetham

Cosmin TRG: Gordian
50 Weapons

Like many a contemporary electronic music release, Cosmin Nicolae's sophomore album Gordian can't be faulted on production grounds. On the fifty-three-minute release, the Romanian and currently Berlin-based producer directs no small amount of attention to fashioning high-energy grooves that carry with them all manner of intricate percussive and textural detail. Gordian is, however, lean on melody, and it's this that ends up making the release less satisfying than it otherwise might be.

“New Structures For Loving” opens the collection promisingly in crowning a delightfully slinky house pulse with a simple yet effective eight-note theme, and enhancing both with liberal bits of textural detail. The title track perpetuates the approach in coupling its rambunctious groove with warbly electronic effects, chordal stabs, and industrial smears; the mid-song breakdown and gradual rebuild is a nice touch, too. But, two songs into the release, one already can hear the shift in emphasis on groove and atmosphere settling in. Cosmin TRG is hardly the first producer to make such a move—techno is, after all, about rhythm fundamentally, and much of the Chain Reaction catalogue, for example, is predicated on such a focus (true to form, the rhythm track in Gordian's “Desire is Sovereign” exudes a rather bullish, Fluxion-styled kind of propulsiveness)—but, stretched over the entirety of a full-length, the modicum of melodic content becomes more noticeable. The muscular groove powering “Semipresent,” for instance, takes care of the bottom-end handsomely, but the melodic dimension amounts to little more than a naggingly repetitive two-note fragment.

Having said that, it's hard to deny the visceral impact of the techno banger “Vertigo,” and sometimes sound design alone is enough, as the dubbed-out “Noise Code” illustrates when it sprinkles its hiss-drenched pulse with bleepy accents and percussion. Captivating it most assuredly is, and at such moments Nicolae is able to get away with downplaying his material's melodic side when the atmospheric details are so rich and plentiful.

April 2013