- Matti Turunen is one-half of prolific Finnish duo Morphology, purveyors of verdant analogue electro with a keen melodic sense. The Elokuu EP is the inaugural release on Swedish imprint Muhk, and picks up where Turunen's solo debut, last year's split with Versalife on the Abstract Forms imprint, left off: richly rendered hardware electro and techno with a more redemptive edge than his duo work. As a formula it risks tipping over into the crushingly pedestrian—but Turunen walks the tightrope with ease, displaying a masterful handling of the form.
The title track is an icy techno number at the opening, all blackened sub and clicky hi-end, but the melodics roving across its surface—rising and falling with an expert casualness—soon soften the edges, giving the thing a slightly fuzzy, mournful quality. "Things You Do" is twitchier, a clinically precise electro stormer pitted with metallic bleeps and propelled along by an intricate bassline. Still though, before long the fiendish detailing is overlaid with pacifying chords—Turunen activating the cruise control. Rounding things off, "Stars" is (appropriately enough) the most astral of them all, its lightfooted techno framework dusted with shimmering chords and luminous nebulae of reverb. Turunen's sound may have ample precedent, but that doesn't make it any less pleasing to the ear.
TracklistA Elokuu
B1 Things You Do
B2 Stars