keinseier

Reduktion

I first stumbled upon the sounds of Hamburg-based keinseier when I landed on his YouTube page, where he was showing off some patches and tutorials for the Elektron‘s Digitakt. I have to admit, I often enjoy watching these, but I don’t always appreciate the final output of the musicians behind the videos. There are exceptions, with Benn Jordan, Hainbach, and Venus Theory, and now I’ve added keinseier to that list. Technically meticulous and surgically precise, his music is also lush and atmospheric, combining all of my favourite elements first discovered during the early IDM era. If names such as Julien Neto, Yasume, Seven Ark, and Secede mean anything to you, then I can almost guarantee that you will fall in love with keinseier. His latest EP for Schwimmbad Musik is only seventeen minutes long, but across these five vignettes, he’s able to explore a vast array of emotional soundscapes paired with downtempo beats and glitchy fragments. In fact, the entire release was produced with a single concept in mind: to use only a single DAWless instrument (a Digitakt II in this case), and deliberately limit the sonic palette to selected textures, single notes, and acoustic fragments. Reduktion explores this self-imposed limitation as a tool, as “a way to shift focus away from infinite options and toward intentional structure, sound, and form.” Instead of adding, he subtracts. Instead of layering, he strips. Instead of giving in to gear acquisition syndrome, he frees himself by choosing one. I’ve tried this process, and it works. It’s usually how I begin my tracks, but then, admittedly, they grow into vast gardens. That is, until the very end, where I begin to chip away again, and sculpting sounds into only the essentials. It leaves them bare to speak alone and say what must be said without embellishment, without decorum. Reduktion ends too soon, and I want more, and so I play his Particles released in October of 2024. As a side note: I’ve tried the Digitakt II in shops, but its clicky plastic buttons leave me slightly uninspired. However, with Reduktion, I may reconsider and get encouraged by this method.

bvdub

SITE (OST)

“Oh, here we go,” you may think after all these years, “another album by bvdub,” as Brock Van Wey churns out his epic releases, one even better than the other, transforming the sound, himself, and us in the process, into something entirely different than what we claim ourselves to be. Inviting Brock into my headphones, I can’t help but feel vulnerable, even as I know that he will come at me, thrashing and tearing down all of the built-up walls. Perhaps that’s why I keep listening. I need his emotionally rich sonic blade to pierce through all that imaginary bullshit. I need all those layers of sound to build on, to smudge, to distort. But if you’re expecting Brock’s signature arc from this original soundtrack, you’ll have to adjust your perceptions, because here, he went on a journey entirely not his own. Unlike the long-playing pieces, which seem to carry you out, while Brock is possessed by his flow, the pieces on SITE are a lot shorter, many in the two- and three-minute range, creating their own intricate worlds with just enough time to surrender. There are longer evolutions on here, but I think it’s in those brief moments of music where I get to glimpse the true genius of the poignant sound design, dynamic handling, and reverberated arrangements that I’ve grown to love from bvdub. And, of course, behind the twenty-nine (!) pieces, it’s still Brock Van Wey – albeit condensed and compressed in some places. Not abridged – concentrated. And that’s why it hits harder, at times when and where you least expect. It’s like a violent crash of a perfectly greased door that suddenly slams in your room, forced by a draft you let in, with that partially cracked window. [BANG!] This 2025 sci-fi thriller, directed by Jason Perlman, is now playing in select theaters and on streaming platforms. You can find where to watch it from enterthesite.com. Find the digital version of the album on bvdub’s Bandcamp.