Onepointwo - Cycles

Released: November 10

Having released albums across numerous labels, Onepointwo (Konstantinos Giazlas) bring his penchant for uncanny rhythms and electronic experimentation to Subexotic with Cycles. Giazlas uses a variety of motifs and never allows anything to tread into the territory of mundane as quirky combinations of synths and percussion swirl around one another in off-kilter timings and perpetually changing rhythms. The album opens up calmly enough with the titular track shared with the name of the album itself with soft synth pings and wide pads moving around a rhythm that begins solidly before slowing, rearranging and eventually falling apart. 

As the album progresses we get wildly different textures that play into themes established at the outset, with some tracks being tight and discrete like "Hollow World" and others taking up more space sonically like "Club Uranium." The latter of these really captured my attention when I first heard it as Giazlas did not hold back on the reverb. The drums have a sound quality of being refracted through some kind of icy cavern. Everything on this track feels like it is in a huge space, one that is almost incomprehensibly large and complex with sounds bouncing down tunnels and the cold ambiance floating through the air.  The album ends with what sounds like the most minimal track, "Here, In A Missing Dream" which consists of of slightly erratic percussion, a simple arpeggio, and a very persistent cricket to create a wonderfully appropriate end to this abstract adventure.