ROCOCO RUINE by Authentically Plastic

Kaleidoscopic and psychotropic, Authentically Plastic's sophomore album is a dense mass of oozing rhythms and viscous harmonies that surges in all directions at once. Its predecessor, 2022's critically acclaimed 'Raw Space', had prioritized a level of intensity that Authentically Plastic dubbed "sonic flatness", developed in response to Western art's obsession with depth of field. 'Rococo Ruine' doesn't go back to the drawing board, but refines and widens the concept even further - without deepening it. The potent, austere rhythms that grounded 'Raw Space' have been stabilized and shredded, pasted into more consistent repetitions that act as an anchor for Authentically Plastic's surprising melodic hallucinations. And it's this fresh development that provides the new album with its unique sonic fingerprint.

When the time came to follow up 'Raw Space', the Ugandan DJ and producer wondered if it might be possible to approach melodic and harmonic material with the same philosophy they had applied to rhythm on their debut. Jamming on synths for the first time, they recorded long melodic sequences that they later juxtaposed with the steely rhythms that rooted their earlier material. The process is plain to hear on the album's volatile title track, a constantly moving fusion of buzzing arpeggios, eerie drones and mesmerizing rhythmic echoes.

Similarly, the evocatively titled 'Mercury Lake' ornaments its pounding, distorted beats with xenharmonic synth undulations, weaving the high-pitched squeals between glistening polyrhythms and volatile effects. And on 'End of the World Sale', Authentically Plastic takes a different approach, treating the melodic elements like "percussive objects", and it's one of the album's most distinctive statements. Working with just synthesized, tonal sounds, they orchestrate a pointillist symphony, dreaming up a surreal, trance-like mesh of staccato stings and semi-solid drones that dark, enigmatic and almost overpowering. Elsewhere, on 'Polycollision' and the turbo-powered 'Schizz', Authentically Plastic responds directly to 'Raw Space', augmenting its polymetric experimentations with discomfiting comb filtered oscillations on the former, and focusing its weight into skittering peak-time patterns on the latter.

Club explorations from the East African and Congolese Electronic Underground and beyond.

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