- Moscow’s Alexey Devyanin works under a range of names, among them Pixelord. His latest pet project is Computer Graphics, a response to recent lo-fi house trends. The style is a good vessel for his light, melodic music, which roves in style without leaving the cozy confines of the bedroom studio. The seven originals on We Have To Go warble and wobble their way across a vague landscape, seemingly unconcerned with passing any dazzling landmarks along the way. You could almost call them aimless, were they not executed with such clarity.
The album’s best moments are an improvement on last year’s CCCP EP for Diskotopia. There's the title track, whose melancholic synth loop appears to drag clattering pots and pans behind it, and "Possible," whose loose swing and dulled piano chords ooze contentment. Sometimes Devyanin smuggles an impressive amount of weirdness into his cuddly compositions, as with the synth sounds that bead like mercury in "Reaction." He moves from toy-like Italo ("Youth") to dank psychedelia ("WTF"). But it never feels like he's digging deep into the styles in question so much as skipping deftly over their surfaces. The music's impact is pleasant, but not particularly lasting.
The album's overlong remix package demonstrates, if nothing else, that not everyone in the bedroom-house sphere is gifted with Devyanin's touch. Ninja Tune's Moiré fares best, supplying a pair of obscure, hissing loop constructs that sound as if culled from a longer jam. The other tracks—from Budapest’s A I W A and S Olbricht, and Fuse affiliates Rad Machine and YAYATI—show how fuzzy textures and dim-lit atmospheres can conceal a deeper creative uncertainty. By contrast, Devyanin always seems to know exactly where he's headed.
Tracklist01. If You Wanna Use It
02. Youth
03. Reaction
04. Sweet Lo-Fi
05. We Have To Go
06. Possible
07. WTF
08. We Have To Go (Moiré Remix Part 1)
09. We Have To Go (S Olbricht Remix)
10. We Have To Go (RAD MACHINE Remix)
11. We Have To Go (A I W A Remix)
12. We Have To Go (Moiré Remix Part 2)
13. We Have To Go (YAYATI Remix)