- Becoming (N)one is the gleaming debut from Christopher Pak Ramos, AKA v1984. The record is a blitz of piano sketches, glass-sharp melodies, ambient FX and bass crashes, like a distant relative of the dance floor-engineered tracks on Glacial Industries' now-defunct predecessor Glacial Sound. But Ramos resists arranging his music into club-ready shapes, crafting a more cubist take on grime.
For all their novel contortions, these songs have an affecting elegance. On the evocatively titled "Crying Beneath The Surface Of The Ocean As The Sunset's Rays Flicker Into The Indefinite Horizon," doom-laden bass gives way to choral synth pads and a beautiful piano loop. Even the churn of "Birth Of Venus," which can be as tumultuous as the name suggests, is dappled with synth and flecks of grand piano.
"Synchronized Joy And Sorrow" strikes the EP's most sombre tone. Two low-octave notes pull the track down, depressing the luminous melodies that dazzle throughout Becoming (N)one. Ramos condenses his various moods and motifs into the title track—a concise expression of the EP's tension between utopia and devastation. Behind light-beam synths and piano slides, things are ripped and sliced—a hands-on deconstruction of club sounds.
Tracklist01. Becoming (N)one
02. Crying Beneath The Surface Of The Ocean As The Sunset's Rays Flicker Into The Indefinite Horizon
03. Pre, Post, Pre(-Lude) I
04. Pre, Post, Pre(-Lude) II
05. Sychronized Joy And Sorrow
06. Birth Of Venus