- Humans is a murky and unsettling record. A sense of mystery is its most endearing quality, refusing to give up its secrets no matter how many times you hear it. The EP inaugurates the Dutch label Tour Messier, a new outlet intended for non-dance floor music with hidden depths. Featuring three ambient soundscapes and a groggy beat tune, Humans is the German artist Philipp Otterbach's first full EP. He's released more clubby fare in the past on the Essen/Berlin label Grokenberger Records, but even those tracks had a haunted quality. (Check "Shake The Shackles," a two-part tribal meditation.) Otterbach is a heady producer, and Humans is his most potent collection to date.
The first three tracks drift through eerie terrain. They're spacious but stifling compositions, filled with a scant few details and the faintest pulse of forward-motion. There are voices muttering to themselves in hushed tones—or are they trying to communicate? "Mfz1YrpMbBg" is loaded with shadowy moans, chanting and a female sample that, though inaudible, sounds distressed. Like a horror master, Otterbach only hints at a morbid picture, letting our imaginations do the rest. "5CnAPD39cUQ" works all that cinematic drama into a glutinous club track that oozes and glides.
TracklistA1 XSvrIZKI8mk
A2 KEmHHqBrnQM
B1 Mfz1YrpMbBg
B2 5CnAPD39cUQ