Kontext - Acid Pasta EP / XI - 000 [Immerse]

Bristol's Immerse Records has just made an older EP of Kontext tracks available for free via their site/Twitter. Its title, Acid Pasta, is only slightly less ludicrous than its cover art (and you only need to look above to catch a glimpse of that garish little beauty).

Thankfully, the contents are more in tune with the label's darker aesthetic and Kontext's roundly excellent set of EPs for the label, which culminated in the chilly brilliance of 'Convex Curved Mirror' -- also due to feature on his debut full-length Dissociate, which Immerse are putting out sometime in the near future. While his recent tracks for the label have been exercises in diffuse, broken minimalism, the tracks on Acid Pasta are a little more rhythmically straightforward, his characteristic spaced out austerity welded to propulsive 4/4 kicks. It's worth grabbing for the floor-filling tech-house of 'Toxic Zombies' and the uncharacteristically melodic 'Arctic Spaceship' alone.

Get hold of it here, and be grateful you don't have to look at that cover in full 12" glory.

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In other Immerse news, XI's new 12" for the label, 000/Slippin', has just been released, and it's great. I reviewed it for Sonic Router a while ago; here's a bit of a reproduction.

"Appropriate to the label’s output, which tends towards dark, percussive minimalism, his Immerse 12” further relegates melody to a supporting role, barely making an appearance at all in the sub, voice and drum battle of ‘000.’ 'Slippin' on the flip is another slice of particularly delectable ghostly garage, joining the ranks of an ever-swelling sub-genre that manages to encompass (amongst others) Burial, recent work by Instra:mental and Scuba, and Clubroot’s aquatic ambience. It’s also probably the best – and most dancefloor-ready - of the four tracks here, underpinned by razor-sharp, hard-panned hi-hats and a techy two-step flex.

Regardless of their relative energy levels, the common trait running through all four tracks is a deliciously palpable tension between XI’s complex, spiraling drum patterns and their backdrop of swelling, oceanic ambience – leaving his music suspended in some tranquil vacuum between waking and dream. The overall effect is oddly disconcerting, neither entirely dance-immediate nor calm enough for comfortable headphone listens, but all the better for it."

http://www.myspace.com/xidubs