Hatch + Foster by yibai

yibai (Dávid Gerlei) returns to EXILES with ‘Hatch + Foster’, a 20 minute EP exploring the fields of bass-heavy, dynamic ambient with an industrial touch. Following ‘Rianás’ and ‘Force Quit’ (the latter released on Temporary Nites), this latest EP of his follows yibai’s journey into gritty, uncanny worlds where stuttering and rumbling effects, along with defined, leading melodies dominate these six tracks.

Looping swirls of sound introduce us to ‘Hatch’ – the rapid pulses implicate the birth of an organism, an entity that is yet to see the light of day. ‘Breadth’ follows with airy and misty horns and hard-hitting beats, accompanying a slow and graceful melody under several layers of swampy synths. Passing the torch on to ‘Mass’, the first moments indeed resemble the intensity of the previous track, but the cadencing flow quickly turns into a long, droney, dense material of steaming blackness.

The dramatic arc breaks in the middle with ‘Balm’. A distorted noise introduces the track, which then turns into menacing drones of sustained buzzes and retriggered gestures, building up slowly into a polyphonic chorus of wounded voices. It falls apart constantly, then tries again, and with the support of fragile, voice-like echoes it reaches a bridge to the final section of the EP.

Sudden bursts and carefully placed units of silence dominate the last two tracks of ‘Hatch + Foster’. The penultimate track, ‘Foster’ creates a harsh mixture of spry harps and the sound of a desperate scream. Piece by piece, it adds more and more unsettling elements with a defined pulse, turning the composition into a focused exercise of inhale and exhale. The EP arrives at the vibrant, glossy yet bitter leading melody of ‘Infra’, where the wandering main theme with a hectic sense of direction ends abruptly, leaving behind nothing but a stark and somber impression of yibai’s current ars poetica.

—Nemerov

Budapest-based artist who composes and performs post-industrial and experimental ambient.

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