Bagaski – Evoke* CD

Folded Buildings debut for The Sound of The Hum Records is a descent into the underbelly of a squat that happens to be a haunted discotheque at the point of collapse. Disjointed, skittering beats and barely audible hints of melody poke through the smoke and wait…is that the sound of the riot squad coming to chuck you into the diesel-choked patrol wagons? This is a staggering work of beat-driven experimentalism featuring wonky, broken electronic toys and drum machines that could explode at any minute. Utterly essential listening. Fans of Ekoplekz, Helm, Regis and Demdike Stare will find much to enjoy here. Rest assured, friends – there’s more to come.

A bittersweet collection of sounds and words from Lisa Eye and electronic artist/producer iGod. Mostly recorded in the UK (an apartment in London and a hotel in Brighton) with additional vocal takes done at Vibe Studio in Basel, Switzerland in 2008 & 2009. A few electronic dubs and the first mixes were done in Chicago in 2009, followed by the majority mixes being finished in Los Angeles in 2011. A few unmixed stragglers were discovered in 2015, when the original album was tweaked, sequenced and released. This re-issue coincided with the release of a limited double LP version.

The nine pages in front of you is a guide to the whole musical universe of Levan Lomidze. One of the iconic selectors, music lovers and collectors in Riga, Lomidze has extensive experience as a musician, songwriter, producer, remixer and even vocalist. His background and the key elements of his music universe are synthpop, post-punk, EBM, trip-hop, funk and everything that is stylish, modern, and fascinating. Over time, Lomidze has expanded his musical horizons greatly. “Listening to a huge amount of music, my own musical taste has also been changing. At some point, I realized that 70% of my music collection consists of ambient and experimental music, from legends to aspiring producers. The silence of nature and the forest, the noise of cities and the endless space. All of this wildly and deliciously mixes with a love for dub techno, industrial, trip-hop and minimal techno.” Lomidze’s refined taste and manic attention to detail resulted in the creation of a diverse and cinematic record, listening to which allows you to experience the entire range of feelings and emotions. Inexplicable trembling and paranoid vibrations are replaced by the rainbow after the rain, alien signals – by nostalgic synth disco, industrial noises by natural motives, and anxiety and light panic – by home comfort and soul tenderness. Here, crackles and clicks in the spirit of Aphex Twin comfortably get along with sound design in the style of Alan Wilder – monolithic passages that sound somewhat chaotic and unintelligible, but are, in fact, verified with mathematical accuracy. On Analog Algorithm, Levan’s composing talents teamed with the capabilities of synthesizers from Dave Smith (his favourite Prophet and Mopho), monsters from Elektron (Analog Four and Digitakt), and the legendary Korg MS-20. Of course, the process of making the album has not been without digital technologies – Ableton Live, Logic, plug-ins from Soundtoys, IK Multimedia, Fab Filter, Audio Damage. “The album was recorded in my home studio in Riga, which I was able to put together only recently, with the idea of finally sitting down and finalizing the rough recordings that were partly stored in synthesizers, partly on a computer. The most difficult thing was to achieve a homogenous sound, because the tracks were recorded in different periods of time, and differed in sound.” The musical canvas called Analog Algorithm, which would easily become the soundtrack to any iconic detective or film noir, is woven from the entire biography of the artist. Here you can hear the beauty of amazing Georgia, the restless bustle of huge Moscow and the unintelligible night whispers of the streets of Riga, where you can easily get lost. “The album was planned as a dance and deep album. This is how the tracks sounded in the demo versions, which are very different from the final result. Over the course of a long work on sound and mixing tracks, scenarios in my head constantly changed, as did my sound preferences. There was a desire to experiment as much as possible, to make the sound less mainstream, more interesting and, as far as possible, underground. I feel like I’m doing the real thing.” While listening to Analog Algorithm, a dark European street in black and white turns into a launch pad to the endless night sky that meets you with the cosmic wind. In a word, it’s an infinite space. To give yourself a unique musical journey and personally experience the effect of an analog algorithm, definitely add the album to your essential listening, and don’t wait too long!