Thursday 11 February 2016

Jan Amit "Hyms" (2015)


Inspired by "Flowertraces" and unimpressed with "Around And Above" I see Jan as an artist who's vision doesn't fall inline with the quirks of his unique identity that makes his music enjoyable for me. This short EP was a mixed bag of fruits not yielding into anything solid but showcasing a few ideas. The opener is a short atmospheric track of dark unsettling eeriness, a soundscape painting the aftermath of an oblivion event with electronic glitches devising the voices of alien insectoids. Its opening moments strangely reminiscent of Burzum's "Svarte Troner", a creepy dark ambient piece.

"Enter Faceless" follows and its an atypical track of Jan's style. Glitched out spacious beats hurtle over dark, illusive ambient noises that drift in and out of focus. It follows the darker theme and with a break for fresh air in the middle it drops back into itself for a second run that leads to no climatic or significant moment. The next track shakes up the formula with some strong House and Downtempo influences forging deep looping dance grooves and simplistic linear notation leads, droning over and over while featured artist Quork lists he hates through a morphed voice that gets buried into the groove on "Flaming Youth".

The records closer "Mass" tickles the ear drum with more alien sounds, wet slippery glitches slap and sway with a watery tone over a vanilla baseline before jumping into glitched out breaks over more void like ambient noises. Once again it feels like it doesn't amount to much, I'm left with what I expected, interest in the aesthetics, atmosphere and glitched approach in the rhythmic department but disappointed with the lack of progression or direction in the songs and their structures.

Rating: 4/10