Articles
2009 Artists' Picks
Lymbyc Systym

Albums
Cory Allen
aus
The Bird Ensemble
Canaille
Catlin & Machinefabriek
Greg Davis
Loren Dent
Dirac
Drafted By Minotaurs
Flica
Sarah Goldfarb & JHK
Gown
John Hollenbeck
Viviane Houle
I/DEX
Akira Kosemura
Andrew McKenna Lee
Le Lendemain
LRAD
Lymbyc Systym
Melorman
Muskox
The Mercury Program
Nikasaya
Northerner
nörz
Noveller / Aidan Baker
Redshape
Marina Rosenfeld
Stripmall Architecture
Sturqen
Wes Willenbring
The Tony Wilson Sextet
Julia Wolfe
Peter Wright
Zelienople

Compilations / Mixes
Blackoperator
Glimpse Four:Twenty 03
Kod.eX
Portland Stories

EPs
Molnbär Av John
Tommi Bass & B.B.S.C.
Julian Beau
Colours-Volume 5
Dalot
Echologist
Simon James French
Geiom & Shortstuff
General Elektriks
Geskia
Ernest Gonzales
Gradient
Jacksonville
Joker
Ann Laplantine
Loko
Machinefabriek
Stefano Pilia
Damian Valles

Geskia: Eclipse 323
Flau

A generous EP with thirteen tracks (three of them remixes) spread across forty-three minutes, Geskia's Eclipse 323 improves upon the Tokyo-based producer's debut album Silent 77 by refining its psychedelic boom-bap style. Though the tracks are still as densely packed as before, the new material seems to possess a stronger sense of structural coherence and, as such, the wealth of detail doesn't undermine the tracks by splintering them into unrelated parts. That that doesn't happen can also be attributed to the hip-hop beats that form the foundation of most songs; without them in place, the material conceivably could collapse into fragments. In his ten originals, Geskia soaks synthetic keyboard melodies and beats in a glutinous bath of voice fragments, instrument samples, and digital dirt, resulting in settings teeming with detail. Though many cuts could be characterized as mutli-layered, glitch-laden instrumental head-nod of the melancholy persuasion (“Innerroots,” “Day Life Structure”), Geskia also makes room for an occasional sunkissed ambient setting (“Sunset Line Texture,” “Silhouetteque”).The future-funk tracks “Experimental Goddes” [sic] and “Inside Out Night” suggest affinities between Geskia and provocateurs such as Flying Lotus and Prefuse 73 (circa Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian). On the remix front, Bracken (Hood's Chris Adams) tightens up Geskia's sound even further in a deliciously bumping makeover of “Second Coming,” the outcome so fine one ponders what a fuller Geskia-Bracken collaboration might produce. Caural (Chocolate Industries) climbs aboard for a predictably polished handling of “Right Lights,” while London-based Lukid gives “3days Trial” a grime-coated treatment not unlike something one might hear from Flying Lotus. Whether their interests gravitates more towards Geskia or guest contributors, instrumental hip-hop devotees should find lots worth digging into here.

January 2010