Sarno Ultra - Sarno Ultra

 Released: April 25

Sarno Ultra is the debut album of two solo artists, Jon Worsley and Kayla Painter. I’m not entirely familiar with their solo work, but their first album together here is quite amazing. There’s a lot of different themes at work here as the album will go from speedy and broken up breakbeats to a more concrete house or tech-adjacent piece only to take us back into the fray of weirdness right after. For the first track, “Rogue Replicants,” we get some of the first theme with a rather upfront breakbeat taking some airy synths on a little ride. If you take away the beat, what you would end up with is something almost wholly ambient and atmospheric, but the beat wraps these otherwise spacious synths around itself and tajes them forward. The next track kind of sticks with the breaks but dials the glitch factor way up. Thinner percussion and some cool video game-y sounding synths make this one a fun listen which kinda of made me think a remixed Wii menu, now with ten times more glitch. 

Once we get to the third track, named after album itself, there’s a definitive shift in approach. Whereas everything else heard before was heavy on the glitchy weirdness and the breaks, this one goes in a more straight techno direction. The beat is far less complex, offering a simpler rhythm that still manages to be pretty juicy. But it’s that main melody that hooks the ear craftily. Even hours after hearing it the first time, I found myself kind of halfway humming it without even thinking about it. It’s surprisingly infectious. 

Coming around to the latter parts of the album, I was surprised to hear things start audibly winding down a bit. Even with some of the glitched out weird fun, there’s a pronounced change in tempo here. I think my favorite track around the end here is “Glacis.” It’s a bit hard to put my finger on but there’s a certain tension between that synths and drums here. I say drums, but really it’s just a single kick playing in a four on the floor kind of pattern, albeit rather softly. The very spacey and slow synths around it form a slight contradiction for a moment that resolves when the kick fades away completely, having done its job and we just have those wonderful synths. 

The pacing of the album is rather immaculate, starting out in dance and breakbeat territory and then slower around the end. It feels wonderful and methodical, but never forced. It’s an aspect that I thoroughly enjoyed alongside the unique sonic discrepancies that Jon and Kayla weave into their compositions.