With an average of one, maximum two deliveries a year, Paris-based imprint Latency has clearly been favouring quality over quantity, polishing each record’s audio and visual facets as if the whole label’s rationale depended on it. Having enjoyed a strikingly rapid maturation – hastened and strengthened by the stellar cast of producers gathered around Sidney and Souleymane: Workshop co-founder Even Tuell, Innerspace Halflife, Joey Anderson, Madteo… the French team breaks 2016 in with a mesmeric 4-track spell courtesy of Italian moody techno specialist Nuel.
"Unveiled shares its predecessors' purpose of bridging the gap between a city-life industrial downbeat and extended airy threnodies"
Folded in a sleek black and white design depicting an antique male bust, ‘Unveiled‘ shares its predecessors’ purpose of bridging the gap between a city-life industrial downbeat and extended airy threnodies. Swashing like a choppy sea of dubby whitecaps, an endless tide of vaporous reverb flexions, FX-cloaked riffs and keyed-up arpeggios innervate Nuel’s well-groomed sound design.
‘Ok Face‘ sculpts a low-pressure dub swirl straight in the vein of his previous excursions with Donato Dozzy. Not quite the highlight as its funnel-shaped structure never really manages to go past its own absorbing quality. The rest of the EP doesn’t see Fogliata stray too far from his comfort zone but definitely gains in melodic depth and mirroring richness.
‘Aphrobite‘ rushes headlong into pensive territories, drawing upon a slightly more vivid palette. Swathed in delay, a distorted motif keeps tensing up before loosening and dissolving in aqueous plumes as crisp, saturated string apostrophes reinforce the track’s immersive character. ‘The Morning Loving‘ nicely prolongs the subdued frailty of ‘Aphrobite‘, extending its subtle textural flavour all the while summoning Basic Channel’s ghostly echoes and Border Community’s trance-inducing glitter.
Bringing down the curtain, the hypnotic ‘M_Animal‘ is a fine piece of understated techno, delving into pared-down ambient spheres and eerie soundscapes. Rich of a multiplicity of listening levels and quite unfathomable deepness, Nuel’s music is creating a unique, alienated intimacy with its listener. For they are so unfettered and carefully textured, it’s fair to say these tracks haven’t finished to drip-feed their penetrating fragrance.
Unveiled is out now, order a vinyl copy from Juno.
TRACKLIST
A1 Ok Face
A2 Aphrobite
B1 Morning Loving
B2 M_Animal