- Elemental techno with a zany streak.
- Voam is only seven releases in, but Blawan and Pariah's label already has a highly specialized sound: livewire, often glitchy techno that sounds like the pulse and hum of electricity. In a Karenn live set, or on the buzzing bulldozer that was Regina Leather's incredible 2020 EP, you can almost imagine wires being pulled apart and fused back together, modular techno taken to its logical (and literal) end. Enter Piska Power, a German producer who somehow brings that sound beyond that end. His four-track Thermal Cycler EP feels like techno reduced to its constituent forms, not so much kick drums, snares and basslines as wild sprays of sparks, churning currents and short circuits.
The title track sputters and coughs along, its texture so intense, midrange-y and unstable that it's like the aural equivalent of touching a raw wire and getting a shock. The music feels almost dangerously energetic—"Thermal Cycler" seems to run off the rails several times, triggering new sounds and shedding others, with a number of pseudo-breakdowns to keep dance floors riveted. "Pica Pica" is even zanier, with aqueous sound design. Big, exaggerated basslines and melodic leads surface like bubbles from a noxious muck, all kept in time by a sturdy kick drum that lets the midrange do its thing.
The other two cuts feature electro-style robotic vocals that add a touch of humour (or maybe menace, depending on your state of mind). "Taxon" has the texture and vibe of electroclash gone mad, with vocals towards the end that sound they're being choked out of the frequencies. Closer "Vokoka" is slightly more intelligible, pairing its unnerving voice with a tonnes-heavy, broken beat kick drum that has a wandering mind of its own. Though the sound palette is relatively reduced, every track here feels unpredictable, nearly explosive, taking the basic elements of techno and making them sound goofy, larger-than-life and occasionally awe-inspiring, sometimes all at once.
Tracklist01. Thermal Cycler
02. Taxon
03. Pica Pica
04. Vokoka