Breathe in… Close your eyes and picture a beautiful land enveloped in warm, pulsating smoke. You must enter this space gently, holding your breath. Fear not, for in this dream, oxygen is optional. It’s the silence that suffocates. Instead, put on your headphones and breathe with your ears. Allow mgnovenie to penetrate each cell gradually, until its rhythm aligns with your heartbeat, until the glitch mirrors your synapses, and the bass matches your stride. This is the realm where r.roo paints with sounds, where erratic, electric clicks dance around the skeletal framework that cradles the lamenting violin. Here, jittery beats drive the piano onwards while the smoke recedes by noon. Breathe out…
I’ve been following releases from Chicago-based Tympanik Audio for nearly six years. This is the label that introduced us to music by Subheim, Access To Arasaka, Undermathic, and Dirk Geiger. Over the years, the label has distinguished itself as a leading source for IDM, dark ambient, and industrial music needs – or rather, it’s a potent cocktail of these three genres. It’s no surprise, then, that the latest enchanting concoction comes from r.roo.
Shadowed in soulful piano movements, twitches of violin, random static and strange radio voices, accented perfectly by crushing beats and a meticulous stitching of glitchy misfires, ‘mgnovenie’ (translated as “The Moment”) proves itself as the ideal soundtrack for intentional mental defections.
Andrey Rugaroo is a Kiev (Ukraine) based electronic musician with a handful of (mostly) digital releases on labels such as Abstract Reflections, Raumklang Music and Someone Records. His fifth full-length, mgnovenie, is also a digital release, with a compact disc being produced due to popular demand. The album’s production is exceptional – not just because of the DSP heavy processing that will satisfy all glitch enthusiasts, but also due to the beautiful melodic progressions that float in the atmospheric ether, enrapturing the listener. The added strings and piano only enhance the cinematic quality for which the above-mentioned artists from Tympanik are already known.
If you’re new to the label, I recommend starting with its compilations, particularly the latest digital release, Accretion, and then exploring the Emerging Organisms volumes. Meanwhile, this past weekend, I’ve been enjoying the debut release from the latest signing, Atiq & EnK. Also, watch out for a follow-up release from r.roo titled Innerheaven, due to hit the streets in 2013.
