textura

Albums
1982
Amute
Answer Code Request
Asuna
Marvin Ayres
Barreca | Leimer
Building Instrument
Taylor Deupree
Dose
David Douglas
Kyle Bobby Dunn
Dusted Lux
Ensemble Economique
The Eye Of Time
Benjamin Finger
M. Geddes Gengras
gnarwhallaby
Hatakeyama & Hakobune
Carl Hultgren
Imaginary Softwoods
Isnaj Dui
Kidkanevil
David Lang
Linear Bells
Mokhov
Moskus
Phasen
JC Sanford
Günter Schlienz
Seelig & Metcalf
Seelig & Nerell
Slpwlkr
Sons Of Magdalene
Håkon Stene
Robert Scott Thompson
Throwing Snow
V/Vm
Julia Wolfe
Xumla
Girma Yifrashewa
Jeppe Zeeberg

Compilations / Mixes
5 Years of No. 19 Music
Margeir

EPs / Singles
Blind EP2
Children Of The Stones
Dylan C
Eveson
Northcape
Katsunori Sawa

Slpwlkr: Close Your Eyes
Black String Records

Vowel-averse his Slpwlkr project might be, but Italian-born and London-based Claudio Ambruoso is otherwise a deft hand at crafting a subterranean brand of techno equally committed to listening and dancing modes. Issued on the upstart Black String Records imprint, the debut Slpwlkr album is specifically conceived in accordance with the digital label's aim: to provide a platform for artists to test the boundaries of techno and explore the degree to which its conventions can be challenged. With that in mind, Ambruoso deliberately opted for the full-length format over the EP or single in order to encourage a more immersive and wide-ranging listening experience—an idea reinforced by the choice of album title, too.

Track names are handled simply, with each of the nine titled “Dream no.1,” “Dream no.2,” and so on, with Ambruoso presumably not wishing to influence the listener's impressions of the material in even the slightest way. Skeletal beat patterns and cavernous rumbles emerge within Ambruoso's dark, synthesizer-heavy soundscapes, and the typical Slpwlkr track is a raw and grime-coated affair that reverberates with dystopic portent.

Smothered in a shroud of granular noise, “Dream no.4” gradually introduces a pounding kick drum to draw a direct line from Slpwlkr to underground Berlin techno, while the ambient swells that drift through “Dream no.5,” “Dream no.7,” and, at eleven minutes, the especially vaporous “Dream no.9” push the textural dimension of the Slpwlkr sound to a blurry extreme. The album's mood isn't unrelentingly gloomy, however. “Dream no.3,” for example, allows some degree of light to penetrate its underground tunnel in the form of glimmering synth chords—even if the moment passes quickly. Think of Close Your Eyes as forty-two minutes of subterranean art techno that one might file comfortably alongside releases by Deepchord, Fluxion, cv313, Brendon Moeller, Resoe, and others of their kind.

July 2014