Article
Spotlight 6

Albums
17 Pygmies
Ælab
Aeroc
Adrian Aniol
Aleph
Artificial Memory Trace
B. Schizophonic / Onodera
Blue Fields
The Boats
Canyons of Static
Celer
drog_A_tek
Fennesz + Sakamoto
Marcus Fischer
Les Fragments de la Nuit
Daniel Thomas Freeman
From the Mouth of the Sun
Goth-Trad
Karol Gwózdz
Mark Harris
Inverz
Kingbastard
Tatsuro Kojima
Robert Lippok
Maps and Diagrams
Merzouga
Message To Bears
mpld
The New Law
Nuojuva
Octave One
Petrels
Puresque
Refractor
Lasse-Marc Riek
Jim Rivers
Dennis Rollins
Scuba
Shigeto
Susurrus
Jason Urick
VVV
Williamette
Windy & Carl
Zomes

Compilations / Mixes
DJ-Kicks: The Exclusives
Future Disco Volume 5
King Deluxe Year One
Phonography Meeting
Pop Ambient 2012

EPs
Blixaboy
Matthew Dear
Fovea Hex
Jacksonville
Kurzwellen 0
Phasen
Pascal Savy

Aleph: From Chaos To Cosmos
King Deluxe

Amazing. Aleph is the nom de plume of one Ivan Erofeev who, born in a Siberian village and now ensconced in still-remote Omsk, is all of eighteen years old. Not only that: From Chaos To Cosmos is his second release for King Deluxe, with the first, the EP Haunt For Little Blind Fish, having appeared in early 2011. While he received classical training on violin, Erofeev's instrument of choice is the computer, as shown by this trippy batch of electronic instrumentals. Hip-hop's part of the mix, naturally, but the Aleph sound resists such easy capture. Instead, the material draws upon an assortment of styles and influences, and sounds in places like the kind of thing one might expect from a Zomby or equivalent UK figure.

The new thirty-three-minute collection, dare we say, shows Erofeev maturing at an alarmingly rapid rate, with a track like “Omerta” evidencing a sophistication and command that we might expect from someone with at least a decade of production activity under his/her belt. What impresses most is the restraint that Erofeev brings to the breakbeat-heavy track, especially when it would be so easy to go in the other direction. That same combination of imagination and skill informs the release's other tracks, whether it be the psychedelic explorations of “Melt of Time” or the exotic dramatics of “Theatre of Matter.” The “Distal Footwork Remix” of “Under a Layer of Ice” is, not surprisingly, jittery in the extreme, but that doesn't make it any the less enjoyable. Elsewhere, an acoustic piano part adds a bit of old-world charm to the otherwise synthetic sound-world of “My Sad Story,” and “Astyanax Mexicanus (Jacob 2-2 Ocean Probe Dub)” ends the recording with a downtempo and surprisingly bluesy exercise in hip-hop swing. In these multi-layered constructions, 8-bit melodies and occasional dub bass lines rise to the forefront of Aleph's complex beat programming and slippery rhythmning. One therefore might think of From Chaos To Cosmos as some ever-mutating future-funk re-imagining of Warp-styled IDM.

February 2012