Our Daily Bread 589: Exit Rituals ‘Blinding Void’
August 23, 2023
ALBUM REVIEW/ANDREW C. KIDD
Exit Rituals ‘Blinding Void’
(Just Isn’t Music)
Blinding Void (Just Isn’t Music, August 2023) is the collaborative effort of husband and wife, Alan Myson (Ital Tek) and Anneka Warburton. I have previously written about Itak Tek on the Monolith Cocktail, which included a brief overview of his back catalogue: Our Daily Bread 579: Ital Tek ‘Timeproof’ June 22, 2023.
Anneka Warburton has an extensive musical curriculum vitae. She has collaborated with various artists on Mike Paradinas’s Planet Mu label; examples include the track Heart Space on the Vex’d album Cloud Seed (March 2010), the single of Starkey’s Ear Drums and Black Holes LP (April 2010), and my favourite FaltyDL vocal track, the rhythmical Gospel Of Opal on his You Stand Uncertain LP (March 2011). She collaborated with Forest Swords on the tribal track Anneka’s Battle from his lauded Engravings LP (Tri Angle, August 2013). Warburton also collaborated with Myson, featuring on Restless Tundra, the concluding track to Ital Tek’s Midnight Colour LP (Planet Mu, June 2010) – a time when footwork was regal, when bells and hit-hat hits and four-four beats tripped to skip into their next bar. Anneka has an EP to her name: the soulful Life Force (Anti Ghost Moon Ray, April 2017), the fourth track of which was showcased by Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC 6Music in January 2015. Her quasi-baroque experimentations using a Korg Minilogue on the track Burst (self-released, February 2018) confirmed her compositional skill.
We return to August 2023. Alan Myson and Anneka Warburton have collaborated again, this time as Exit Rituals, a group in its own right. Blinding Void opens with Soon Bloom. Sustained glass-shattering synths pierce the headphones; beneath this, the deep sounds of a cello bowing. A three-note pad eventually filters through, its minor melody proliferates, ascending to fuse in unison. Everything eventually exits. Warburton’s vocals are expanded further on A Fluid Portrait. She sings atop a sonic soup which stirs circumspectly. The vocoded vocals double up over an alarm-like synth that keys indistinctly.
A thudding heartbeat rumbles on Dream Canyon. This is not the lub-dub of a mammalian heart. Perhaps the life sounds of an object in the cosmos, or even light? Its reverberated third beat thrums. On the subject of light, this appears in many forms on this track, and the EP more generally: vocals, pushed away into the peripheries, aerate; an occasional electronic flourish tremolos into the distance. As the denouement of Dream Canyon is reached, the heartbeat becomes clearer, less muddy, until suddenly – it cuts out. Treble reigns supreme at this juncture. I am reminded of Björk circa Vulcincura (One Little Independent Records, January 2015).
The double-unison vocals of The Knife play out on The Light. The deep cello sound makes a further appearance. Staccato-synths provide momentary reference. There is no exposition on this track, no coda; rather, it moves seamlessly onto the title track which showcases the vocal talents of Warburton. She sings hazily, wavering even. I imagine her sung voice corresponding to the visible wavelengths of light; drawn out across their electromagnetic spectrum, the sharper frequencies are red, and the quieter violet stretch until they become ultraviolet, and onwards to X-rays. The synths are stripped-back and the bass bright. Everything coalesces.
Warburton’s vocals chop and stutter on Lacerate, helicoptering around to achieve impossible frequencies. In time they descend to merge with the bass-heavy undertones that have rumbled throughout this EP. The concrete synths of Myson begin to pummel the aural cavities of the listener. We are offered only perfunctory light on this track: the slightest of key changes in its very last moments.
Does Blinding Void have a narrative? It has yet to become clear. The highlight? The electro-classical Soon Bloom which mirrors the life-cycle of a flower. And where does this EP stand in the respective output of the couple? The earliest collaboration between Myson and Warburton was on Ital Tek’s 808-driven, sitar-infused dubstep EP, Deep Pools (Square Records, December 2007). The intensity of Weave on that release echoed the likes of Benga and Skream and Shackleton. Their collaboration then was a modern Lamb, of sorts. The respective sounds of Myson and Warburton have travelled a long way since then. With Exit Rituals, they achieve balance. Warburton brings warmth and light and organicity that offsets the machinations of the drum machines and caliginous synthwork of Myson. With Exit Rituals, there is a suggestion of gravity in the deep vacuum of electronica.
Our Daily Bread 579: Ital Tek ‘Timeproof’
June 22, 2023
ALBUM REVIEW/ANDREW C. KIDD
Ital Tek ‘Timeproof’
Timeproof is a soundtrack of our time: sobering; fierce – Hitchcockian. It is the seventh album of Alan Myson, better known as Ital Tek. Early Ital Tek was different. Cyclical (2008) was under-appreciated and served as a fine example of expansionist dubstep. Midnight Colour (2010) was two-/dubstep heavy with a blurrier focus on bass; it crossed the melodic line into intelligent dance music. Nebula Dance (2012) was pure footwork at a time when his label (Planet Mu) were dropping their hugely influential Bangs and Works Volumes. He took an abstract view of drum n’ bass on his sub-half hour mini-album Control (2013): the amen break was observed through broken glass. It was maddeningly chaotic. Conversely, the rhythmless Zero was the highlight on that release – shattering mellow synth and choral notes were released like steam from a venting fumarole*. Ital Tek’s sound changed dramatically thereafter. In Hollowed (2014) he actually entered the fumarole. He continues to inhabit this lightless space. His explorations have taken him through the metamorphic mantles, onwards to the metallic core. I recently revisited some of his previous extended plays. Dissonance featured heavily on Seraph (2020): an example of this is the opening chords on Granite & Glass. The choppy snare drums on the title track recalled his dubstep origins; its back-lit harpsichords ripped the whole sound open. Throughout Seraph I had visions of water. It was as if I was listening to something immensely epic that had been fully submersed. The melancholic Hazed cascaded like a waterfall: I watched its waters pile over a precipice in real-time – in my mind, the water reversed back upwards. After on The Speed of Darkness EP (2017) had brought me to a similarly restful space.
In stark contrast, Timeproof seeks to discompose. Ultimately, it is an aural observation on that great unknowable construct: time. The glass-seated chair that sits in the centre of the accompanying album art is hallucinatory. The chrome finish reflects inwards rather than outwards. Time is clearly considered to be recondite here, and surrealist (like the accompanying art). To the music! Granular subterranean tones flow beneath Phantom Pain. Ital Tek has opted for a different drum programme from what I can discern: early Skull Disco label meets the machinations of The Bug meets even earlier John Carpenter. It is as mettlesome as anticipated; son futur, musical noir played through voltage-controlled filters and a sustained envelope. The synth-glory that sonically needles its why into one’s ears was there in 2016 when he released his Beyond Sight EP; specifically, the final piece, Until The End Of Time. The opposing mellow hues split across a sunrise on Staggered. The two-keyed notes ascend before being called back in semi-tonic descent. It is monastic and fleeting – catharsis after the opening assault. Heart String is suspenseful with a locomotive-like opening as the chords are played through pulsing low-rpm drums. It beckons a deeper sub-melody that is improvised (rather oddly, I am reminded of Keith Hopwood and Malcolm Rowe’s score to the 1989 film adaptation of The BFG here, particularly the dissonant dreamcatcher sequences). It ends in an ascending tremolo to anti-climax. Darking proceeds and is empirical. Its movements blindside the listener. The synthesiser melody almost tears through the headphones to reveal a mathematical harpsichord melody is akin to ‘future baroque’. This Bach-like and cyclically-variable approach is evident on the hymnal Open Heart on his Outland LP as it switches to a quasi-organ sound around its midpoint. There are elements of Underworld and Jon Hopkins here (particularly the waltzing treble kick that staccato into an off-beat which is a signature of the latter artist). Ital Tek has been here before: listen to Time Burns Heavy on his Dream Boundary EP (2020). Similarly, on this LP, counterpoint synthesiser melodies play out on One Eye Open and Zero Point. As its title suggests: Darking is to be listened to underground. Hear, hear! to Ital Tek the fatalistic.
Zero Point is another good example of Ital Tek’s mastering of suspense: off-cut synths and synth waves pulse and swell; distorted sawing gnaws away to eventually overwhelm; a clever cut reveals a lithe, two-tone sub-melody. The rhythm section muscles-in as an early double-kick, part-syncopated and cyclical 4-4. Fourth dimensional bells are dissonant – they jangle, elevating the piece. The sub-bass is given momentary reprieve to breath. The latter has become a signature of Ital Tek: musical deconstruction in an act of self-interrogation followed by a systematic reworking that leads to reimagined drops or a cleverly concealed false summit as is the case on Zero Point. The tracks Endless and Oblivion Theme on his remarkable Outland long play (2020) also embody this metaphor of compositional disintegration.
Timeproof offers moments akin to a dystopian mass for modern times. Listen to the modular sequences that cascade on the The Mirror. Synth-swords are sharpened. Its beat is hi-hat-less grunge – trap for the modern era. Peremptory and leaden, the kick drum batters at the walls. On Cold Motion Ital Tek sustains the notes like the ambient-noire of Vangelis. It would suit the slow-shot of a Tarkovsky film: think the railroad sequence on Stalker (1979), or the Earth scene from Solaris (1972). The aesthetic is cataclysmal: slow-build; bittersweet melodia; major and minor progressions. The album becomes canonical at the juncture of its final two tracks: The Next Time You Die and the title track. The former opens with arresting vocals sung in strange triads. The melody is inconsistent and broken. The synths offset this, but only a little. It is a chorus of the two worlds that Ital Tek inhabits. The motif played on the organ at 2-minutes 34-seconds is progressed slightly until we are guided into the crypt. It is stony and marbled and mottled, yet in the same breathe, life-giving. The final (and title) track opens with low-frequency strings in a similar mode to the double basses that build upon the Aeolian scale of the opening movement of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, Op. 36. The organ-like movement from the preceding track reappears; except, this time, it is held longer. The keys are pressed harder. They sustain and are sustained until they cannot sustain any more. The cacophony of sounds are pained. It grimaces at you, and eventually, a sardonic smile appears. The body of sound is then laid to rest. I think of many things when listening to this album. The sound is cathedralic. At points, it is cinematic. Ultimately, my thoughts rest on a chrysalis. From its ominous opening to hymnal finish, Timeproof grows inside a cocoon of polyrhythm and sub-melody until its wings eventually open to close, making a final and magnific opening in conquering glory.
*a fumarole is an opening in the Earth’s crust through which steam and gases are released
ANDREW C. KIDD
Monolith Cocktail Blog 