- Louis Vial is part of the duo Mura Oka with Latency co-founder Sidney Gerard, and he shares the Paris label's nocturnal sensibility. Geometry Of Disorder, for Manchester's Meandyou (another crew with a taste for the deep stuff), refines a style debuted on his €€€ EP earlier this year. It's techno, but only just. The arrangements here are austere and muted, all pillowy kick drums, worn-smooth pads and distant machine sighs. It says something that the EP's most energetic track is opener "Glass Rain." The solid momentum of its kicks is almost completely negated by the bereft chords drifting up top.
These tracks' appeal comes from their ambiguity. Sometimes they seem faintly optimistic—like the luminous "Hardcore MNS IV," or "Eyeless Mannekin," whose warm pads flit over a dull 303 burble. Sometimes they're darker, as in "Numbers & Chaos," whose drums circle patiently in the gloom, landing kicks and snares like punches. And sometimes they're a bit of both. "777,7"'s soft loops fall somewhere between percussion and melody, and its hollow chords seem to suggest another key entirely. There's a kick drum in there, but it's so muffled that you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd imagined it.
TracklistA1 Glass Rain
A2 777,7
B1 Eyeless Mannekin
B2 Numbers & Chaos
B3 Hardcore MNS IV