₳§ᗐM̶R̳ welcomes us back in with warm pads. Slowly, glitched sounds permeate the comfort of the background noise. One can…

₳§ᗐM̶R̳ welcomes us back in with warm pads. Slowly, glitched sounds permeate the comfort of the background noise. One can hear a dial up tone briefly in the background. All of a sudden, through what sounds like a tube full of viscous fluid carrying our body and ensuring safe passage, we are sucked through a wormhole and deposited somewhere new. Echoed sounds and sporadic beeping inform us we have entered a new location. It’s evident that ₳§ᗐM̶R̳ has spent an incredible amount of time and expended a lot of energy into the rich texture of even these first two minutes. We hear more of the same sorts of sounds, is this others being deposited next to us? Visions of a field of tubes each catering to another test subject. All of a sudden, purity in the form of an incredibly acoustic drum pattern. The pattern breathes a strange duality into the track of synthetic and real. It’s as if the drum pattern exists inside our own mind as we begin to traverse a digitised landscape. 

CURRUPT DOWNLOAD brings us heavenly clouds of sound, slowly whistling overhead. A low buzz within seems to be a reciprocating force from the ground, mirroring the effervescent sound. More nonsense noise as beeping ensues. The drumbeat hurries us along, from a simple 4×4 every now and again, hi hats burst out of the sound like tendrils. The track is a subtle one, but does a great deal to burrow us further into ₳§ᗐM̶R̳’s world.

2xMEMORY begins with warbling corkscrewing towards us. As the sounds grow deeper and more rooted to the rest of the track, we begin to realise how euphoric the layers are that ₳§ᗐM̶R̳ is creating. They twirl, and the binary bass line brings us up and down with it, adding emotive presence to the proceedings. Another drumbeat subtly slicing through the gloop of pads with surgical cymbal work. In the track we feel a slight picking up of narrative pace. Sounds emit from the layers that the artist has created that we begin to recognise, even imbue feeling into. There’s a bittersweet hue to the tracks so far, as if we are listening to an endless euphoria trapped inside the boundaries of a simulation. 

EXTERNALLY WIRED begins with tightly wound, squealing notes above choirs that transmit to us through faulty machinery. Once again, the beautiful instrumentation is tainted, creating a strange soulless aesthetic that comes with art in the digitised age. ₳§ᗐM̶R̳ pushes these affectations to the very front of the instrumentation. We hear the movement of waves behind, and a speedy hi-hat motif cuts in suddenly. The sounds of children’s voices flailing about in a place of fun. They slowly snag on glitched moments and repetitions. We are tricked momentarily into being in a different place, but the sounds disappear fairly quickly. We remain in the very same location we started. 

Deep, throbbing bass flies about under a thick delay in DATAHEAD. High frequency sounds squiggle out into the air, low ones bounce around the space below. A melody line drips over the proceedings, filling every little corner and hole. ₳§ᗐM̶R̳ shows an incredible sense of musicality so far. The rhythms that have been employed speak to a number of different electronic genres, yet the artists uses them as and when they please entirely. 

The track 4xMEMORY topples into effervescence, a lethargic beat with a trickling melody slowly lolling over the track. A stop/start game between distorted bass drum and snare ensues. A lacy hi-hat almost disappearing into ether snaps and clicks overhead. The track has a lasting beauty about it. Enticing one to relax into the repetition.

LIVINGSOFTWARE bursts suddenly with a start-up sound cloaked in distortion. Everything settles slightly. A clear, loud female voice assistant questions whether she is a machine. One can only guess that she is exploring her own data banks, or a figment of someone else’s. Warnings of data capacity permeate the running water flowing behind. We realise we are in the middle of a high-stakes procedure. ₳§ᗐM̶R̳’s musicianship is comfortingly impressive, but a narrative, lineal structure has been created all the while. One that speaks to the intersection of digital and real.

CONSOLECOWBOY rolls modestly. Low-moving sounds lift off of the soundscape below, taking flight just over a bed of deep sounds. A melody, a law unto itself squeaks out above it all. Drums and other percussive sounds move along unhindered. Nothing breaks uniformity unless absolutely necessary, ₳§ᗐM̶R̳ let’s the repeating melodies capture the listener in the crosshair.

8xMEMORY shudders as large electric generators spark into life. Robotic percussion, almost like the sound of a production line starts. A machine forces itself forward, half digital-half industrial. A bell sound rips out comically, as if we are stuck in a constant state of positive reaction. There is a rich world of sound present below the more prominent machinations of the track. A whispered voice riles off seemingly random letters throughout. A bass line imbues a repetitive almost nonsensical melody to everything.

OVERLOADED begins in silence. A sinister pad floats up, followed by a pacy, flat drum loop. This is then swapped out for deep drumming. The structure of the song bends and creaks. A note stretches and moans, turning into transient dust. Suddenly it cuts out, stopping short of any meaningful closure for the listener. 

₳§ᗐM̶R̳ provides the listener with a short insight into a world of digital viscera. The sounds somehow enshrined in the pure and palpable, but cracked and remoulded into digital entities. This EP is an example of how this artist is doing such a great deal to explore incredibly interesting concepts, and create imaginative soundscapes.

Listen in full here: https://boguscollective.bandcamp.com/album/memory-overload