Published by Alessandro Violante on May 1, 2016
Recently the courageous label Hands Productions has celebrated its twentyfifth anniversary with a monumental fourfold box (which we have reviewed on our pages) and came back, after some months, with six new physical releases, all released on 22th April, only some days before the annual festival of the German label, Forms of Hands, during which they were “presented”. Since 1995 Hands Productions has focused its attention on the formal and structural research and evolution of electronic music, and this same spirit is shared by an important album as Trackologists‘s No surrender, no retreat, a group formed by the well-known The_empath (which released his astonishing Trackology with Ant-Zen the last year) and by the duo Heimstatt Yipotash, whose last album was released by Hands Productions in 2014.
Trackologists’s message is clear, and it is a projection of what the label has produced: there’s no trace of a will to retreat, nor to surrender to a music market strongly transformed by the undeniable signs of time. No surrender, no retreat is an album that shows the same creative urgency shown by the label in its early years, and it’s all but an ordinary proof of concept made by who knows he has nothing more to say, because Trackologists, more than musicians, are specialists and explorers of sound, and they are very far, musically and conceptually, from the rules of the mainstream music market.
Their first album exhibits a “technical-scientific” analysis of the so called electro-industrial music (although this definition is rather reductive when used to define this album), totally detached from any kind of “human form” and a lyrical heritage that belongs to the past. That’s the reason why it’s useless to talk about musical influences; if we were asked to search for them, we would find them in the label’s approach (and as for The_empath, in Ant-Zen’s approach). No surrender, no retreat is a very well made experiment, that highlights very different approaches in each song, although each one is linked with the others by a common thread.
On the one side there are the hammering beats and claustrophobic rhythms of The_empath (the most emblematic example is maybe Suicide with plastic gun) while on the other side there are the atmospheres and rhythmic abstractions of Heimstatt Yipotash. This meeting gives life to a never ordinary album, always full of surprises and musical patterns made to be tasted listening after listening in order to understand the extreme care for the detail, the element that gives to the songs that quid that is often absent in other albums of the same musical genre. Trackologists is an album conceptually linked to the idea of sound research that has been followed along the whole history of German electronic music, moving through Stockhausen and Kraftwerk (to quote two well-known examples) reaching, of course, what has been proposed by Hands Productions, and this can be a good interpretation of the album.
Focusing, in a more specific way, on each song, the opener Sonic barrier highlights a sci fi-like cinematographic approach in which all the musicians trademarks are highlighted: there’s a taste for old school electro-industrial synth lines (but with a more particular touch thanks to piano keys) as well as a never ordinary mid tempo, even thanks to the rhythmic slowdowns put in the right moment and in the right place. Modified newtonian dynamics shows an almost-funk side thanks to the sounds used and shows particularly “distant” vocals, that seem to come from machines. The title track uses a less pronounced beat, showing an extra oomph thanks to excellent and never ordinary, IDM-derived, rhythmic structures, that are very present in the whole album. τ = 2π exhibits sidereal atmospheres and rhythmic abstractions close to certain intelligent dance music, evoking journeys in unknown planets (thanks to the craftsmanship in the use of music tools) moving the focus towards science. Also several particular intuitions can be found here.
On the contrary Suicide with a plastic gun is the most “ordinary” song, in which the powerful and gloomy rhythm assails the listener, involving him in a syncopated ballet, upon which distant and robot-like vocals stand. Larmoyanz and Self-replication get back to a conceptual-scifi universe that brings us back to strongly sci-fi landscapes where we discover new lifeforms, but in different ways: while in the first song the ambient element is highlighted and the rhythm constantly change, in the second one there is a more stretched and defined rhythm,which in some way evokes some Aphex Twin tunes, crossed by a Surreal mood. One of the more particular and successful songs is undoubtedly Bayt Al-Hakima, which change the direction to Middle East landscapes, consequently changing the beat in a more physical and tribal way, as well as the synth lines. A song that has to be interpreted as an attempt to explore cultures very different from the European one, a strong interest towards the “Other”, which since its early manifestation has always belonged to the heritage of industrial music.
Boötes void is the perfect ending, with a long and rhythmic mid tempo characterized by a strong ambient and sci-fi taste, then followed by two interpretations of the opener, the first one made by The_empath, the second one by Yipotash: the first one is fast, IDM and claustrophobic, while the second one is softer, slower and old fashioned, but both are very well-made.
The real ending consists of two Hidden tracks: the first one (Silence & credits) redescovers a certain taste for ’90s ghost tracks and ends with the robotic voices of the musicians, which present themselves with a ’70s-influenced (Kraftwerk-like) synth line put on the background, while the second one (Prologue EA_version) has a fast, quick and intelligent rhythm that is a perfect ending for an album that is particularly rich of different interesting intuitions and ideas.
Ultimately, No surrender, no retreat is a complete album that astounds for the excellent quality of its songs and for the care for the details and the way it sounds. Hands Productions comes back in grand style with one of the more particular and out-of-bounds albums of a 2016 that is revealing itself afoot of very good ones.
Label: Hands Productions
Rating: 9