- Deep, textural and ultimately powerful techno from a Pacific Northwest mainstay.
- Out of Portland, Oregon for well over a decade, Matthew Mercer has been making whatever kind of electronic music suits his fancy. In addition the synth pop project he shares with his husband, Microfilm, Mercer's solo discography has jumped from microhouse to ambient to IDM-adjacent sound art. His latest, Ataxia, follows up an ambient LP by going for the exact opposite—the jugular. This is functional, contemporary-sounding techno, replete with serrated granular synthesis and leaden kick drums. But despite its relative straightforwardness, this music really comes alive in the details. At its best Ataxia is actually minimalist music, heavy but precise, full of ear candy and deceptively complex grooves.
The opening title track is something of a red herring—in fact, it's my least favourite on the album. The sturm und drang of roaring low-end and caustic effects is somewhere between powerful and cheesy, but it's on the second tune, "Paralalia," that the LP really clicks. This one isn't much more than one pounding kick drum, with distant sounds roiling below, like licks of flame that only occasionally singe the skin—it's as cerebral as it is physical.
The best moments on Ataxia are just as pared-down: the tight, coiling bassline of "Outer Cortex," where the kick drum appears and disappears, the slow pendulum swing of "Lethologia," the dive-bombing bass of "Revok." And "Phosphenes" puts the kick drum way below everything else, focusing on a shimmering melody that feels like the dub techno equivalent of The Edge's guitar ringing out in all its triumphant, chorus'd and delay'd glory.
If there's one track worth listening to above all others, if you only want to one a listen to start out, it's "Parabolia" and its glossy, almost house-inspired strut. The melodies are bright and brittle, but they seem to slip and spill out of the measures, like oil pooling in-between the cracks of the ever-reliable kick drum. It's a neat sleight of hand that adds a tinge of psychedelia without interrupting the functionality of the genre. In other words, pitch-perfect techno.
Ataxia's focus on texture and detail makes it a good nighttime album, not just for clubs but for a walk around the city or half-lidded bedroom listening. The sequencing is equally impressive, starting out hard, tunneling to the bottom and then coming back up with the rousing, rattling closer "Revok." It's a sound design piece as much as a techno album, tying all the loose ends of Mercer's discography into something that feels contemporary and bumping, but without the idiosyncratic auteur touch that Mercer has been refining in his corner of the Pacific Northwest for years now.
Tracklist01. Ataxia
02. Paralalia
03. Lethologica
04. Parabolia
05. Aphasia
06. Outer Cortex
07. Phosphenes
08. Revok