tender, exit by 96 Back

For his sixth 96 Back LP, Evan Majumdar-Swift found himself writing “a long form eulogy” to his years living in Manchester while preparing for an imminent move to London. Initially intended as a series of technical exercises, which saw the artist radically stripping back his established production setup, over the last two years tender, exit gradually took on the form of an emotional landscape, mapped in transit between two cities. “The overarching concept of the record is cycles, recognising them, loving them, and tearing yourself away from them,” he says. Heard together, the project takes on the pace and cadence of a passionate conversation with a loved one.

This approach was heavily influenced by his recent tour with Iceboy Violet, who encouraged the artist to play around with the kinds of narrative it is possible to construct within the self-contained space of an album. “I was trying to explore the ways in which we soften the blow around change and trying to mirror this sonically,” he explains, “contrasting textures of high and low fidelity, building sounds around fluid states, trying to make sounds and arrangements that feel like they could fall apart at any moment, even if they give the impression of stability.”

tender, exit’s angriest tracks, written during Majumdar-Swift’s final months in Manchester, channel this chaos and precarity. The pizzicato rush of ‘Rubber Knife’ rides the thin line between Yeezus-style industrial fuckery and brostep bravado, before careening into the cyborg rage of ‘Calcified,’ a sci-fi chase sequence that sounds like globules of liquid metal shedding from a metal exoskeleton. ‘DUI2’ propels malcontent vocal spit with bolshy MRI machine charge and laser-burnt bassline, while ‘Comprexxing’ overwhelms crunchy percussion with queasy waves of shredded synthesis, cresting in a tail-end flirtation with filter house wobble. These are 96 Back’s primal instincts given space to flare out, singeing anyone in close proximity.

Yet the anguish of these lopsided slammers is counterbalanced by an equal number of experiments in lovesick electronics. On ‘This Wants To Love’, urgent percussive skip threads through lovelorn ambience, while heartfelt words are sighed through tears. Immediately, we pivot to the blood pressure spiking ‘Bxtter’, which bangs like one of Majumdar-Swift’s early Central Processing Unit tunes piped into a hyperbaric chamber. A desiccated, detuned arpeggio, constantly threatening to snap apart, trips over itself before being bolstered by muscular electro heft, itchy fragility disguised by chemically-induced euphoria. On ‘Vicious’, crystalline shimmer is shattered by blistered licks of breaks before being melted back together by sunny shoegaze swell, like two voices finding pace with each other from different perspectives.

Frayed power ambient interlude ‘96 Kisses’ breaks the tension between these two moods, obfuscating a distant voice with distortion, torn velcro rips and fragments of lost ideas, before receding beneath the words: “I told you, I got a boyfriend.” As though in response, ‘Do Something To Forget’ coaxes an aching assemblage of chopped vocals and strings out from melancholy haze, as much variation wrung from every sound, resulting in something plucked straight from a forgotten IDM heartbreak mixtape. What emerges, between all this aggression and ache, is a sense of clarity that bookends the album, marked by the presence of Fallowfield house party fixture Terrashotta and one half of beloved Manchester double act GOMID, LINTD, aka Nigerian-British vocalist Iyunoluwanimi Yemi-Shodimu.

Album opener ‘Peruvian’ plunges us straight into opiate drift, speckles of digital detritus slowly swirling around background mumble before waterlogged bass plucks herald Terrashotta’s gently delivered Mancunian lilt. The effect is like falling asleep at the afters, only to be woken by your friend softly singing. LINTD’s turn on ‘Tongues iii’ sees 96 Back settling into a more assertive rhythm, as though drawing from all the elements of the journey that has preceded it. Yemi-Shodimu’s voice sounds clear and Majumdar-Swift’s beats hit harder, his battered production no less full of anguish, yet more self-assured and aware. We close tender, exit with the sound of experience, of a hard decision finally made.

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