- Minimal techno, with its lack of, well, much, lends itself very easily to concepts. Ireland's Donnacha Costello is one producer fond of such projects: his ‘Colour’ series wore the influence of Wolfgang Voigt’s ‘Studio One’ and ‘Freiland’ excursions proudly, each record focusing in on singular a 4/4 theme packaged in a minimal sleeve design distinguished only by colour. And the music? By restricting himself to old-school analogue sounds, Costello managed to produce a string of addictive, absurdly simplistic hits. '6x6=36' is his latest concept, a CD collecting the three 12"s of six tracks of six minutes produced in six days in his Dublin studio.
While these ideas are exciting on vinyl and over two tracks, collected here the restrictions imposed make for a wearying listen. With a larger bank of sounds to play with than on the ‘Colour’ series, Costello offers greater variety, marginally, on '6x6=36', but the adherence to strict rhythmic formula is equally tiring: all but one follow neat mathematical arrangements of build, break and collapse. That said, there is still fun to be had within individual tracks. '6.1' collects light bubbles, tics and springs, introducing a conga right near the end. '6.2' is punchier, with a clap from the start and a melody of simple blips. Synths add weight and sit amongst pools of grit in '6.3' with the rhythms popping like suture points, while '6.4' has the snare rattling like a marching band while pings dance high and low like plucked piano wires.
So far, so-so, but the final tracks add variation. First the funk is removed for a Sahko- like exercise in emptiness in '6.4' involving a lazily thud-thudded kick around which snippets of sine-tone are randomly and sparsely inserted - not as bad as it sounds and a welcome change. Finally '6.6' adds (presumably Costello's) able vocals and gets back to the disco, offering up a story about crying in bed before answering my question, 'Why stop at six?' with a repeated, 'Well that's enough. Fuck it.' As singles these blank exercises are indeed enticing, at least to fans of straightforward minimalism, but in bulk they offer nothing to the genre’s critics who point to the style's blandness and, in this case, ease of production.
Tracklist1 6.1
2 6.2
3 6.3
4 6.4
5 6.5
6 6.6