- Located in the middle of a forest, most of Dekmantel festival is framed by trees and the open sky. If you get sick of all the nature, there's always the UFO stage: a long, dark tent where festival-goers are pummelled by darker and harder strains of dance music. Having launched a sub-label in the stage's honour, Dekmantel naturally looked to Peter Van Hoesen to get it going. The Belgian-in-Berlin's stern techno sound is built for precisely these sorts of spaces. In his less inspired moments, that's all it is: music that mirrors the dimensions of certain interiors, impressive and impeccably designed. But Dekmantel caught him at his best. Quadra's four tracks are concise, stylish and bristling with deft detail. They're diverse too, and in sometimes surprising ways.
"Quadra" opens the EP with a flush of romance. There's a ghostly echo of Detroit in the way its bassline duets with a twirling midrange melody; that movement triggers balmy pads that Van Hoesen sets into wavelike motion. Sometimes it's an inky swirl low in the mix, sometimes a foamy crest under carefully placed hi-hats. Elsewhere, Van Hoesen diverts his attention from melodic flow to rhythm. On "P2ME," acrid melodies tug furiously against a rigid drum grid; the tension between the two makes for the EP's most engaging track. On the relentless "Duet Dub," Downwards-style melodic loops bore mercilessly into the brain over a broken beat groove. It's Van Hoesen's music at its most dissociative.
Only "Cartesian Taiko" doesn't keep to the high standard. Its distorted synths buzz and snarl menacingly but remain hemmed in by the drums. As with all of Van Hoesen's music, you can at least admire the solidness of the structure. It's easy to imagine those kick drums rolling down the UFO tent, finding their way into every gloomy corner.
TracklistA1 Quadra
A2 Cartesian Taiko
B1 P2ME
B2 Duet Dub