It is not easy to set the rhythm of our times to music, to make a dystopian era that believes itself to be normal, faces lost in silicon and souls even more distant. Few have succeeded in this difficult task, but there is one sound that was born to describe what is happening, and that is techno. Niclas Erlandsson comes from Sweden and releases his ‘Väsen EP’ on Berlin-based Antimodus.
Four tracks of full and powerful techno, made of basses that dig into the brain and fill the synapses, techno for real and not for posing. His sound is a mixture of the most incisive techno masters of the past, with a great hook to acid techno, but he takes several instances and re-proposes them in a unique and truly enveloping sound.
Niclas’s musical trajectories are great to dance to in the most extreme venues, but can also be listened to in any other circumstance.
The ep is designed to hit hard and get inside the listener’s head and stay there. There is a lot of machinery in this sound born from binary calculation, but as can be seen from the beautiful video of ‘Vitorm’ there is also a lot of love for nature, especially that of northern Europe.
The tracks are very well balanced and Erlandsson has the magic touch of those techno producers who know how to hit hard but with extreme class and the ability to produce melodies even with bass. “Väsen” is a very powerful and evocative ep that shows us a very original producer, who knows very well what techno he wants to propose and is sure of his means to a great success. An excellent ep for Antimodus, which confirms itself as a label that sees far ahead, techno for a present as dark as the future.
Androids dream of electric sheep, certainly Niclas dreams of dystopian and very powerful basses.
