- There's a hefty gap in Blawan's discography, between 2012's His He She & She and the launch of his Ternesc label last year. Before it, he was UK dance music's young rabble-rouser, pioneering a boisterous techno reboot that helped turn a generation of young ravers onto the harder stuff. These days he's hardly softened up, but his music is a world away from the rowdy bounce of "Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage." Blawan's style now cedes ground to techno tradition, but does so on its own terms. Two EPs last year sounded as if he was trying to make big-room bangers with tools designed for another purpose entirely. The blunted drums were uncomfortably dry and close, the bee-swarm synths cracked with strange distortion.
Communicat 1022 goes further. The ideas are stronger and the sounds even odder. Listening to the A-side's boing-y synth lines, it's difficult not to think of didgeridoos. On "Say What You Want To Say" they're squished between drums that seem to have been put through one time-stretch too many. On the aptly titled "Rubber Industry," the bassline flexes and bends, as if it's been left too close to a radiator. In the track's latter half, a couple of high tones breathe some chilly air into the hot, stuffy space.
The EP's other side is a shade straighter. "Lit Up Communicat" is the slow-burner, its ghoulish metal clanks and sulky chords gaining potency on repeat listens. "Marga" is the peak-time number. The apocalyptic rumble of drums is relatively stable, and the molten synths cascading over it are familiar from a dozen big-room techno records—and yet, in some way that you can't put your finger on, they've never sounded quite like this.
TracklistA1 Say What You Want To Say
A2 Rubber Industry
B1 Lit Up Communicat
B2 Marga