- Progression is a tough inevitability that every artist must face. If you hook them properly the first time around, fans will likely stay loyal until the end. For someone who's been pretty adamant in his refusal to toe any line, Cardopusher's progression—through dubstep, breakcore, glitch and other separatist sounds and into more streamlined house and techno—has been serviceable, if slightly unfulfilling.
After working with a number of labels for years, Cardopusher set up Classicworks in 2012 with fellow Spaniard Nehuen, hoping to diverge from the discography he'd nosily amassed since 2006. In the various EPs and splits that have emerged, the producer born Luis Garban dabbled in vintage 4/4 patterns—acid and ghetto house in particular, which makes sense given prior aggro tendencies. Things took an industrial turn on his most recent Classicworks outing, the third split with Nehuen, but the music has essentially all come from the same dark, dank warehouse. Garban's debut album, Manipulator, is a lengthier extension of the same.
Which means that, if you've kept up with his recent record, Garban doesn't offer a lot of meat to sink your teeth into. Manipulator is perfectly functional and has its share of notable moments—including the ultra-ravey "Photina," the caustic and chirpy "Jumpforce" and "Parallax," probably the most scourging basement number we've heard from him to date—but something fundamental is missing. It all feels a little flat, safe, samey.
It's not as if Garban was ever about bucking trends—or setting them, for that matter—but the way he eschewed predictability for the longest time made him a dark horse worth gambling on. (And when he nailed it, he nailed it.) As Todd L. Burns once pointed out, you could never really tell what you were going to get when you saw the Cardopusher name on a release. That no longer seems to be the case, and could make a once memorable artist a little too easy to forget.
Tracklist01. Exceptions
02. Morning Traffic Dance
03. Dance To The Acid H
04. Photinia
05. Jumpforce
06. Cult 91 (3 Am Mixx)
07. Xerox
08. Manipulator
09. 505 Authority
10. Parallax