The Predatory Wasp
Andrea’s last album Ritorno was one of my favourite releases of 2020, so it’s great to see him back on Ilian Tape for the follow up, Due In Color. Atmospheric breaks one again dominate, with perhaps just a little more ambient whimsey present than last time around. Lush In End (Drum Version) is one of the more energetic tracks, and it’s absolutely brilliant.
Ilian Tape really are in a league of their own. Regardless of which particular branch of electronic music they’re currently championing – usually several simultaneously – it’s pretty much guaranteed to be brilliant, and Jake Muir’s new album Mana is no exception. Tonic – the lead track – is ambient techno at its finest, beatless save a subterranean kick that echoes, ominously, in the background, grounding what is otherwise a freewheeling soundscape of restlessly twitching synths and shimmering celestial pads.
EDIT: Jake just pointed out to me that the entire album is actually composed of samples, without a synth in sight. Shows how attuned my ear is to electronic music after nearly four decades obsessive listening.
Ilian Tape so rarely put a foot wrong it’s almost not worth highlighting their releases any more: just subscribe to them on Bandcamp or wherever you get your fix and revel in the consistency of their schedule. This is taken from an oblique album by MPU101 (no artist bio, tracks named after various bits of Roland hardware), and is at the more relaxed end of their techno spectrum, with kick drums almost completely expunged in favour of meandering acid lines and warm, hazy synths, and is, in a word, gorgeous.
Ilian Tape really is a remarkably consistent label: I don’t think I’ve heard a single thing on there I haven’t really enjoyed. This is taken from Galaxian alias Kas’s new album Like Sunlight Threads – the first LP on the label since the Zenker Brother’s brilliant Cosmic Transmission from last year – which veers wildly between fairly accessible, melodic breaks and terrifying, panic-inducing techno. In The Absence Of Becoming sits very much in the former category, and is unlikely to make my wife ask “What the fuck are you listening to?” with quite the same venom as some of the other tracks on here.
LG_Amb is taken from Italian producer Andea’s debut album for Ilian Tape which explores various different electronic styles, from ambient and dubby techno to more visceral jungle/breakbeat cuts. LG_Amb sits somewhere in the middle of these: what starts as dreamy, shimmering ambient is quickly joined by clattering broken beats and eventually rich, warm pads. It’s really lovely: so lovely in fact that I do wish there had been a few tracks of a similar vibe on the album. There are a few that sound a little overproduced and clinical as a result, whereas this melts out of the speakers, fully formed and organic.
The Predatory Wasp 