- Belgian imprint Vlek has been an excellent source of subtly compelling electronic miniatures over the past couple of years. Here, the label welcomes German-Indonesian producer Tiga Bakso into the fold for the second in its series of free-to-download releases. Bakso is reportedly a failed bookbinder-turned-media designer who grew up in former East Germany (a deliciously intriguing backstory), and this is his first release. In some respects, it slots neatly into the Vlek formula: much like the series' inaugural LP, Wanda Group's Cleaners, it features swatches of unobtrusive, cracked ambient techno, more concerned with the probing of subtle details rather than the acting out of grand gestures.
But where Wanda Group's LP specialised in bright but claustrophobically rendered melodics, Bakso's soundworld is far darker and less demonstrative. Woven through this record are textures that crackle with the quiet fervour of electrical circuits possessed; background sounds that resemble the chirruping of data-scrambled crickets, or the gentle hiss of steam being released from decrepit machinery.
Opener "Tuesday Aft" is perhaps the most pastoral thing here—which is to say that its metallic synth tones and methodically pulsing toms manage to evoke a kind of alien comfort as well as distant menace. Closer "Knutenne," meanwhile, is the most outgoing, its tightly constricted drone and bursts of distorted kick drums slipping into a densely abstracted hip-hop groove.
But most of the EP operates in between those two poles; the threshold between soothing and unsettling is well-trodden ground here. In the gorgeous "Mono Gurke," machine-like sounds writhe and squeal softly in the upper register while muzzy pads outline, in the barest terms, a harmonic progression. Elsewhere, "Raaven"'s pulsating bursts of noise are punctuated just once by a limpid spray of raindrop-like synth notes. Like all of these tracks, its extreme brevity leaves you envisioning far larger structures, and a far more substantial release, in which Bakso's ideas could fully unfurl. Here's hoping such a release isn't far off.
Tracklist01. Tuesday Aft
02. Raaven
03. Mono Gurke
04. Lonteku
05. Last Call
06. Knutenne
07. Claus Fish