RX-101-New Discoveries (12"LP)

Label: Suction Records
Listen: Link

Year (release): 2022
Genre, primary: Experimental electronica
Genre, secondary: Experimental techno
Catalog number: NBLP002
Country of origin: Netherlands

t’s been two years since Suction released Serenity, a collection of RX-101 tracks that bristle with an industrial energy. New Discoveries is different. That rawness has mellowed, that fury has been calmed, the sound has changed. You could put this down to a lot of things. New machines. A life change. The pandemic. It’s impossible to say, seeing as the tracks were made more than twenty years ago.

The LP is introduced by “Back to Zero.” Dauby basslines flow beneath silken strings and a crisp clap. The style would fit in perfectly with the Artificial Intelligence series of Warp, echoes of early B12 coming to mind with certain elements of Detroit also influencing. “Trip to the Unknown” follows. An angular melody is smoothed by sweetened notes, an off-kilter percussive pattern lending the piece a wonky techno charm. Close your eyes on “t.p.o.s.m.” and you’d swear you were listening to Analogue Bubblebath 3. Ambient lines are interrupted by a stark rasping beat before muddy keys arrive to add texture. This isn’t reproduction, simply a superb example of a sound associated with Rephlex circa 1995.