Exegonal - Epicoteque

Label: Swishcotheque
Artist: Exegonal
Release: Epicoteque
URL: http://www.swishco.co.uk/release.php?id=45
Rating: 6/10

Exegonal's release on Swishcotheque, Epicotque, immediately seems to be taking a play out of Aaron Funk's diverse playbook. It soon becomes clear, however, that the play is executed with skill and taste. While it is derivative, it's very tight, and its technical and thematic merits speak for themselves.

The theme of Epicoteque lives somewhere between Last Step and Winter in the Belly of a Snake. It is horror and sci-fi, alien and perverted. It's the soundtrack to the sort of uncanny, sourceless fright that only nightmares bring. It's much less apt to the distortion and technical freakouts of Venetian Snares, and instead demonstrates a strong sense of care and compositional discipline. You never see the monster, but you know that it's around every corner, and that it's unimaginably horrible.

The first track, Gam1, is a short piece that recalls wind chimes, though detuned and more carefully rung, as if by a clever and mal-intentioned wind. It serves as a great foreshadowing of the next four tracks.

In Pighead Demons, the second track, Exegonal makes use of an image-to-sound tool that treats images as spectrums to encode them into sound. If you're familiar with Aphex Twin's Windowlicker, you've heard the effect, and may have heard about the image of a face that's encoded into the track. You may have sought it out and seen it yourself. It's a trick that was fresh then, but it hasn't aged well.

Here, in Pighead Demons, it's similarly (and distractingly) used to encode a "hidden" image into the track. In that moment where the image is encoded, while the watery, morphing chirps are playing out, untreated, with no accompanying instruments, you're left thinking, "do I fire up the spectrum analyzer to see what the image is? ...Nah, can't be bothered..." and then the track rolls on. It breaks the immersion in an otherwise excellent track. The tool is used extremely well, however, as a melodic element throughout the track, when used to encode spectrum images that are meant to end up as notes. The treated chords sound like an alien organ, and mix well with the skittery percussion, acidy synth lines, and atmospheric melodies for a surreal, spooky action ride.

Discount is the highlight of the release. After an atmospheric section with synth piano and comparatively mellow analog beats comes an acid explosion that maintains the drama while quickening the pace. Near the end of an interlude of saw synths and heavy delay, ominous strings fade back in and another acidy payoff brings the track to a close.

FunkyMicroMan starts weakly, with beats and acid lines that aren't engaging enough to carry the track. The strings from Discount return, but the chords this time are less inspired and don't help out the other struggling instruments. The final third of the track picks up, though, with funky panning beats and powerful, rocking synth riffs.

NION - E closes out the EP, and is also on the weak side, especially its second half. The bass line there plods along in a happy-go-lucky way that counters the EP's tone, the beat falls in line and plods as well, and, while the main melody sometimes agrees with the bass, it seems to have ideas of its own that don't mix well. This main melody is the lone voice in the end, but it doesn't have much to say.

Overall, Epicoteque is a strong-willed and engaging EP, though there are lapses and weak points. It is derivative, but in the end it holds its own, and there are moments of brilliance that make the release feel unique.

KR