Published by Alessandro Violante on March 27, 2018
Ammanford-based duo Somatic Responses, a small industrial mining city in Wales, as well as several others acts belonging to the same music area, have always highlighted how rhythmic patterns, wovened by them, weren’t intended to be perceived passively by the listener and transformed into meaningless dance, as well as several others acts belonging to the same music area have done.
In fact, a somatic response is, in medical jargon, a voluntary action. Since their early releases on hardcore label Shockwave, their aim was to simulate a conscious reaction and thoughts in the listener. Thought is one of the key elements of Stefan Alt’ Hymen label too, which released Pattern seeking, their new album, some months ago.
Besides the fact that this album was mostly composed by means of analogue gear (but they’re not the only musicians who have recently adopted this practice), there’s no doubt that this work, released approximately one year later Folding space, is one of their best efforts. It covers a wide range of styles, it’s unpredictable. This doesn’t mean that the previous one wasn’t good, but in this case we have something more.
At first, Pattern seeking floors the listener who expects an heavy syncopated IDM assault, as its opener Bmbd o syr sounds smooth, with gentle drum and synth sounds. Anyway, it sounds pretty good. The atmosphere remains a relaxing one with the follower Disrupted orbit, entirely focused on sound synthesis, portraying an imaginary electronic landscape. This continues with the follower Continual orbit, a variation of the previous song, which encloses it into a 4 / 4 soft rhythm, an intelligent experiment. Although making a track-by-track analysis can seem often meaningless when approaching a “genre album”, in which all the songs follow the same path, that’s not the case. Pattern seeking is a peacock having a kaleidoscopic tale.
In fact, Recycled promise has a martial, fixed acid rhythm under which a complex synthesized pattern is developed. The most beautiful part here lies on the background, until Ready your weapons explodes with a powerful and engaging rhythm in which the noise element rises for the first time, smart and classy. Between Braveheart and Blade Runner, an epic mid-tempo run in a futuristic scenario. Also Fall hits the listener with a convincing rhythm-driven song having an obscure mood, but that’s not all.
Rhythmic noise is emphasized in the follower, slower and more syncopated Qs 231, and in the titletrack, while Gross analogue misconduct goes back to 4 / 4 straight, acid and synthetic techno. A very good result of the melting of techno and industrial music. Anyway, maybe the best song of the album is Cinematic death sequence,thanks to its alternation of cinematographic, yet anxious Hitchcock-like ambient atmospheres and a quite gentle syncopated rhythm. Isolated circuit, a 4 / 4 song influenced by ’90s electronica sound, is the perfect ending for this kaleidoscopic work.
The album also contains a link to download another album, Pattern finding, a perfect pendant for the main work. In that album the rhythmic element of SR is more emphasized, while the melodic element is not so present. But it’s also a sort of limit, as while sounding very good too, it follows a similar path on each song.
Pattern seeking is a complex and various album, and the variety of the styles adopted is an added value making the difference. Somatic Responses once again present themselves as a multifaceted act, funny musicians having fun in what they do, capable of hard live sets, as shown during last Maschinenfest, even composing more melodic and introspective sounds when they want to.
Label: Hymen
Rating: 9, 5