- Samuel Van Dijk made one of 2016's sleeper hits with Shift Register, an album he released as VC-118A, a project inspired by airplanes. There, the Dutch producer's sumptuous atmospheres and ear for detail made for electro that felt ethereal and limitless, elegantly capturing the feeling of flight. Shift Register was an affecting take on the genre that combined its core sounds with Van Dijk's painstakingly cinematic style. As Mohlao, he makes techno from a similar perspective, and Landforms, his debut album as Mohlao, reflects that approach.
The music on Silent Season, the Canadian dub techno label releasing this LP, is inspired by nature. Van Dijk fits this style to a tee, though his perspective is nocturnal. Synth lines flicker like distant stars, around which Van Dijk applies thick, dark strokes of atmosphere. On "Rotar"—at once Landforms' most subtle and most compelling track—Van Dijk creates an epic out of the tiniest sounds, with each careful streak adding up to a beautiful, abstract swirl of techno.
"Rotar" follows the same approach as the VC-118A album: working in an established form while gently colouring outside the lines. Landforms is bolder with bigger splashes of melody. Gloomy organs roll in like rainclouds on the otherwise barebones "Outline," while "Voltool One" foregrounds a woozy drone that makes its stable rhythm feel curiously off-kilter. The 12-minute centrepiece, "Neptune," shows a knack for patient pacing—a big part of what makes Van Dijk such a good album artist.
Silent Season also excel at the album format. Careful sequencing and attention to detail makes an hour of intricate techno feel immersive and compelling. Landforms is yet another luxurious Silent Season LP, though it's also subtly distinct. The cover, designed by Van Dijk, does not depict a verdant landscape of, say, Vancouver Island, but rather photography that could be satellite pictures of Jupiter or alien-looking landforms closer to home. The music doesn't evoke the crunch of twigs underfoot or boots through snow so much as astral starscapes and clear summer nights, a refreshing shift from the earth to the air.
Tracklist01. Rotar
02. Voltool One
03. Neptune
04. Hue
05. Vector
06. Outline
07. Undertone
08. Flare
09. Patchbay
10. Landforms