- As London's Old Apparatus began to step out of the shadows in 2012, Asher Levitas revealed himself to have the sunniest disposition of the trio. His solo EP under the OA banner, Alfur, was almost poppy, its autotuned vocal and 2-step rhythms recalling Mount Kimbie in places. These tendencies were given freer rein in the grandiose synth-pop of Saa, a collaboration with vocalist Linn Carin Dirdal that yielded an EP for left_blank last year. Levitas' new label, Overshare, will, we're told, host more Saa material in the future. But kicking off the imprint is a new collaboration, Penny, which sets the pop gestures to one side to focus on Old Apparatus-style electronic abstraction. Levitas handles the music, while writer and artist Michael Crowe supplies accompanying psychedelic video-collages. Unfortunately, Levitas' material isn't quite strong enough to withstand scrutiny.
Like much Old Apparatus output, these three tracks sit between styles in a way that could be intriguing but is often just frustrating. The meandering "Pen#1" can't seem to decide what it is: dank kosmische (for the first few minutes), stolid techno (at the midpoint), or R&B-sampling electronica (shortly after). We do, eventually, reach some kind of agreement between these competing forces, but it takes an awfully long time to get there. "Pen#1" and "Pen#2" are more concise. The former scrambles more R&B vocals over stultifying percussion; the latter is poised somewhere between stomping squat-techno and Visionist-style melancholia. Unfortunately, in both cases the hi-end is mixed piercingly loud and the kicks ineffectually quiet, leaving the whole thing feeling cluttered and exhausting on the ear.
Tracklist01. Pen#1
02. Pen#2
03. Pen#3