In the home stretch of a year of 2014 stud with some brilliant outcomes, the release of Privacy’s Hypertext EP on Lobster Theremin felt like an ultimate and lasting lungful of fresh air. Although the EP developed an aesthetic that quite clearly leaned towards old-school synth convolutions, the Australian-born producer kept his recipe away from any easy classification, acid by turns yet not fully 303 obsessed, shifting to pure electro patterns but eventually setting up little techno missiles aimed straight at the closest club in search for some bumping action.
Privacy may not be an old hand in the game, the conjunction of his first two releases should be enough to convince you that the guy’s got more tricks up his sleeve than many producers out there. Take No Way Back: mixing acid lines with spooky pads that glide before nose-diving, sprinkling a good dose of distorted synth gargles and well-felt breaks with an assumed taste for analogue interweaving phases and robotic voices that Dopplereffekt wouldn’t repudiate ; the producer unravels his technical poise with ease when it comes to retro-futuristic atmospheres and hazy dancefloor invocations.
All in all, the kind of spirited yet a bit lazy electro appeal that merges from tracks like Dimensional Separation and No Way Back is becoming quite scarce these days. With a delicious use of spaced-out synthlines associated to a meticulous taste for polished and generous sound architectures like on the opening track Against Us, the potential combinations of sounds feel limitless. The laidback synth leaves room to an energetic and fast moving concert of claps and hats, oscillating from more meditative flat tints to hardened sonic projections. It’s right there, between the contemplative sound panoramas unfolding in pads form and essentially dancefloor-oriented drum programming, that Privacy manages to develop his extraterrestrial approach of post-hip-hop breaks and cosmic flexions a la Drexciya.
But then, System Voice unveils a whole different type of melody, toughened and fastened. Certainly the highlight of the EP despite the general consistency on display. Unleashing a terribly efficient groove of synthetic frenzy supported by an altered voice that breathes in some computerized soul, the uptempo cavalcade of the track also finds an anthemic echo in Helena Hauff’s version. The slowed-down pitch allows the German producer to extend the range of the ghostly soundscape and stretch out the cadency for a more lascivious take. As expected Hauff delivers an implacable taste of her current state of grace that confirms both her and Privacy’s growing status as two surefire figures on two different levels. A good omen for the future.
Command Pattern EP is out now on Klasse Recordings, order a vinyl copy from Clone.
TRACKLIST
A1. Against Us
A2. Dimensional Seperation
A3. Exact
B1. No Way Back
B2. System Voice
B3. System Voice (Helena Hauff remix)
Discover more about Privacy and Klasse Recordings on Inverted Audio.