Natural Devices

After a flurry of EP’s in 2014, including cassettes on 1080p Collection, Baba Vanga and a split 12” with Katie Gately as part of Fatcat’s forward-thinking split series, Tlaotlon starts 2015 with Natural Devices on his fresh imprint World Memory Records. On Natural Devices Tlaotlon maintains his ingenious rhythmic invention and vibrant sound worlds, but now in higher definition. On these eight tracks, dynamic, glossy and malleable assemblages often evoke the plastic arts. Digitally processed sonic objects are manipulated to bubble, burst and drip seemingly of their own accord, yet are simultaneously sculpted with razor-sharp precision and tamed just enough to fit into the dense spatio-temporal terrain. All eight tracks on Natural Devices have a bass drum on every beat, however the rhythmic sensibilities displayed don’t quite conform to the grid-based and interlocked machinic momentum of Techno. Using numbers and ratios culled from various sources, Tlaotlon creates a mesmerizing ‘rhythmification’ of data. Percussive elements each loop on their own axis, decentering the grooves as they orbit and eclipse one another. Melodic phrases are built with the repetitious logic of ringtones, human speech, radio idents, console start-ups and animal calls. By shifting focus around and between these elements, the listener can appreciate new perspectives in the music’s inter-rhythmic topology and scope. Natural Devices reflects the multiplicity of the virtual domain onto the open surface of electronic music. Where pop-ups, splash-screens, hover-ads, gifs and auto-play videos might simply rupture your focus zone, Natural Devices zooms out enough to transform this sensation into a multiple-tabs-open musical panorama bursting with divergences of colour, texture, balance and drama. This is a unique perspective on close-listening club music and is a bold, speculative work of contemporary electronic music.