Name: First Session by yaxu
Duration: 18 min 48 s
Description: Two exploratory improv recordings from the first collaborative session with Shu Jiang (Guqin / Chinese zither) x Alex McLean (TidalCycles, live in the Slaboratory, Sheffield UK. Supported by Access Space.

Artist: @fausto_mercier / @trngs
Catalogue Number: IM091
Album: I'm Too Sentient
Release Date: June 25th, 2021
Format: Digital

Stepping in as a musical match-maker, Infinite Machine has paired up Fausto Mercier & trngs, two boundary-pushing sound designers, for a fresh EP of kinetic and visceral electronics. The pair are well suited to be partners in crime on I'm Too Sentient: both share a meticulously detailed approach to sculpting sounds as well as a keen interest in producing a sonic ‘uncanny valley’ in their output - manipulating organic sounds until their source is barely recognisable.

Fausto Mercier opens up I'm Too Sentient with Overcorp, a dramatic opener which only seems to get more frantic over time. Unfolding like an algorithmic Fibonacci spiral, Fausto’s musical ideas seem to shrink and appear within each other like fractal patterns. Towards the end of the track, the low-end drops out and is replaced by moody pad synths, an uneasy palette cleanser that glides over fidgety samples that refuse to sit still.

Next up, Bite Nails II Assert Dominance is another cerebral hit of complex, polyrhythmic laptop music. The beginning of this track seems far more ‘on-grid’ than Overcorp, but we are lulled into a false sense of security by Fausto who starts nudging samples into unexpected phrasings or squeezing new sounds into inexplicably small gaps within his drum programming. A real head-spinner of a tune!

Fausto’s final offering from the split, O O Doomscrll is potentially the most frantic moment of I'm Too Sentient. Humanoid-esque synths seem to wail through the arrangement, backed up by a punishing delivery of drum hits and manipulated organic sounds. As the title seems to suggest, O O Doomscrll could almost be considered as a soundtrack for our age of digital disorientation and social anxiety.

trngs opens up his half of the split EP with Organic Fabrication Core, a sonic headfuck if ever there was one. Jammed full of ideas and operating at break-neck speeds, trngs background in improvisational free jazz definitely comes to prominence in tracks like these.

Next up, trngs keeps the tempos fast with I'm Too Sentient For My Own Wellbeing - a track which sounds a bit like if Mark Fell had a breakcore side project. Musical stutters and iterative loops are abruptly swapped out for aggy kick drums which cut through the mix like a knife. The name of this song, again, nods to our accelerated virtual culture and the pressures that our contemporary information-overload can exert on us.

Rounding off the split, trngs’ () %%% () is a curious experiment across multiple temporalities and textures. Starting off serene and calm, the production degrades and glitches-out like an alien fungi permeating an ambient music culture.

An enthralling exploration of modern laptop musicianship, I'm Too Sentient is probably unlike anything you will hear this year. We suggest you press play and hold on tight.

Artwork by trngs

Fausto Mercier - Bite Nails II Assert Dominance

Rhythm Computer(Battle Mix)

As part of the first batch of tapes of 2022/23, Artetetra is presenting the first four tracks of a split featuring two éminences grises of minimal but highly imaginative audio storytelling. Kinked and Señor Service, who fully deserve the title of bedroom superstars, use their screens and musical tools as gateways and magic wands to dissolve the listener into uncertain and nebulous musical worlds, creating the clever illusion of a narrative. But remember, it's just an illusion! Pure audio préstidigitation for children and adult mammals alike.

Kinked describes itself as leftfield-ritualist of vocal gestures and granular realities. Part of the Riforma crew, he is also known as the visual and text researcher Lapo Sorride; also known as the tenco-grime lyricist Dori Sorride.

Señor Service is the solo project of Umberto Pasinetti, formerly 1/2 of New-Weirdo-Vibes label Pampsychia. Started in 2019 as a tender and humoristic music project, Señor Service feeds on cheeky plunderphonics and dreamy FM synthesis. It is 100% certified as always satisfactory. Until now, he has always delivered.

Delving into Kinked’s and Señor Service’s audio tales always feels like living instrumental coming-of-age adventures where the plot is tangled, multilinear and seldom controlled by actual characters...  

Album Art by NOT399093 (instagram.com/not399093/)
Mastered by Giancarlo Brambilla aka Kuthi Jin (soundcloud.com/kuthijin)

Señor Service - A ReAL BWuoy

(smoke in the bottle)

SIM 046.3 - Jenn

Might be the fastest mix I've ever put together? I was kind of stuck in my own mental cave so this is me attempting to process my emotions after being advised that I need to sit with it instead of avoiding/suppressing (it)...

Music that inspired me during this period:
Indus Bonze @ VIXLATIXN 2023/06/23 (Soundcloud mix)
Independence: Tread on Sure Ground - Masayuki Takayanagi and New Directions (album)

Tracklist:
Kaneda vs Battle Against Clown - Indus Bonze
Partly Alive - The Body
Deftones - My Own Summer (Shove It) (KAVARI Bootleg) 172
GENGAR - DJ GHEPARD
Totem (echavox_108816 & S280F _so help me god_ remix) - Nick Leon
Twisted Rope - Eden Aurelius
Ravx - Whiterose
Demons Taking Over - Jaijiu
ST (Ani Klang Remix) - st.grimes
ISMAEL. x Stormzy - Helix x Wiley Flow - Abadir
Call of the Tahuri - Animistic Beliefs
Tachyon Particles - AMOR SATYR

Artwork by @abysmal.khaos on Instagram <3 (thanks for letting me use your artwork~~)

“We’re like a family”

This mix is a collision of two interesting facets of modern electronics - more dance and club in the first part and more experimental noise in the second

Tracklist : 

Darius Heid: [00:00] Track 1
[08:10] Track 2
[18:58] Track 3
[24:59] Track 4

@lujiachi @darius-heid

LUNAR PRISM — DIGITONICA invites Lujiachi and Darius Heid

@tinatunning

a fist for a fist - tekken
aqad @razmiel
the water would heal you if it wanted, sadly it will not. @estearr
red screen of death @talpah
juggernaut @synalegg
rash @paulie-jan
rotten @proxdotbleep x atlams - WEȽ∝KER
arva offmode @sn0runt
8. a body keeping score loop @juha-fool
9. unsighted reversed @juhafool
before the storm @whatever001
force fed @28082 + echavox
ilnhols pathing @svntrw

la mort aura tes yeux — dominica dies

Two exploratory improv recordings from the first collaborative session with Shu Jiang (Guqin / Chinese zither) x Alex McLean (TidalCycles, live in the Slaboratory, Sheffield UK. Supported by Access Space.

First Session

Written by SITOI
Produced by Exploited Body

@sitoi
@exploitedbody

Ytimeni (Core)

My core
My core
My smouldering core
My malleable core
My smouldering and malleable core

First Session

yaxu

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