Article
2012 Artists' Picks

Albums
36
The Alvaret Ensemble
The Boats
Dadub
Day
Enduser / The Teknoist
Alejandro Franov
Christoph Funabashi
The Inventors Of Aircraft
Kostis Kilymis
krill.minima
Lau Nau
Madera Wind Quintet
Todd Matthews
Lubomyr Melnyk
okamononoriaki
The Outside Agency
Oyaarss
peterMann
Pleq + Philippe Lamy
Roach & Metcalf
SaffronKeira
Martin Schulte
Jay Shepheard
Tape Loop Orchestra
Techdiff
TM404
Yard

Compilations / Mixes
Darkroom Dubs Vol.3
Petre Inspirescu
Pop Ambient 2013
v-p v-f is v-n

EPs / Cassettes / Singles
Alis
Arkaik
Babi
Bee Mask
Bungle
drcarlsonalbion
Fescal
Fluorescent Heights
William Ryan Fritch
Greyghost
Junction 12
Lind and Loraine
Alessan Main
Martinez
Mikal
Show Me The Future
10 Yrs hhv.de 45 Vol. 10
Wolf Cub

Dadub: You Are Eternity
Stroboscopic Artefacts

Stroboscopic Artefacts has released few full-lengths since its 2009 inception, which makes the arrival of its third, coming after Lucy's Wordplay For Working Bees and Xhin's Sword (both 2011), something of an event. And as it turns out, You Are Eternity by Dadub duo Daniele Antezza and Giovanni Conti is an event but more for its quality than for its status as Stroboscopic Artefacts' third album. Without question one of the best electronica albums I've come across in recent days, You Are Eternity is a seventy-four-minute exercise in alchemical ferocity that at times plays like a punishing plunge into the deepest recesses of the psyche. Originating entirely from digital sources and samples and recorded over a two-year period, the album's dozen tracks have been mixed to play as a continuous albeit episodic whole rather than as separate pieces.

Enhanced by a Fela Kuti sample (“Music is a spiritual gift, and those who misuse it, die young”), “Vibration” eases the unsuspecting listener in slowly until he/she is thoroughly trapped within Dadub's viral sound-world. The music gets tougher after that beatless scene-setter when “Truth” underlays samples of Henry Waxman questioning Alan Greenspan (“And my question for you is simple: Were you wrong?”) with a tribal-electronic pulse and storm-drenched atmospherics and when “Life” smothers a relentless beat thrust with an even more lethal overlay of nightmarish noise. The word epic might be overused, but in the case of Dadub's recording its usage is appropriate, and it's not because of the You Are Eternity title and track titles such as “Death” and “Existence”: epic in Dadub's case applies because the duo's sound is so multi-layered, dense, and dramatic. Nowhere is that more clear than during “Transfer,” a crushing throwdown featuring additional production by Ninja Tunes artist King Cannibal (Dylan Richards).

February 2013