- Hyperreal experimental tracks.
- Over six years of Aïsha Devi releases, it's remarkable how much, and how little, her sound has changed. On 2013's Aura 4 Everyone, the Swiss producer deployed booming percussion, minimal synths and her own resplendent voice to create murky, no wave-inflected compositions. She gradually stretched those elements into increasingly abstract shapes, oscillating between celestial beauty and foreboding dread, often underpinned by deep concepts like meditation and string theory. Arriving after last year's DNA Feelings, S.L.F finds Devi sculpting those familiar components—her voice, synths and cacophonous drums—into bright, rave-inflected sound art. These are some of the most focused tracks she has composed.
"I'm Not Always Where My Body Is" is both breathy and hollow, but also pleasingly impactful. Pummelling kicks ensue before an ambient, vocal interlude arrives in which Devi sounds like, I kid you not, Kylie Minogue. It's an unexpected switch-up that works. Pop meets pristine sound design.
Winding arpeggiated melodies writhe throughout "Two Serpents" and "The Favor Of Fire," imbuing the tracks with a trancey forward propulsion that's grounded by deep, syncopated kicks. "Teta 7hz (Tool)" is the EP's outlier, featuring the media theorist DeForrest Brown Jr. delivering a strangely unintelligible spoken word monologue—pitched down and distorted—against Devi's soaring soprano. Every sound gleams with a glossy, hyperreal sheen, including Devi's manipulated vocals. Towards the end of "Uupar-Theory," she cryptically intones "Empower your mind / You can walk through walls," as if disembodied and subsumed within her own computerised soundscape. Devi has never sounded more in control of her tools.
TracklistA1 I’m Not Always Where My Body Is
A2 Two Serpents
B1 Uupar-Theory
B2 Teta 7hz (Tool) feat. DeForrest Brown Jr.
B3 The Favor Of Fire