Description
At this stage in his career, Nicolai has his methodology nailed down like a dining table on a cruise ship. His precisely-engineered infusions of drone, noise and glitch have inspired a generation of producers, and truly, few do it quite like him. So although “HYbr:ID I” sounds familiar, the only person he’s really aping at this point is himself. And Panasonic.
The album is saddled with an expectedly heady concept; it takes its track names from “static images portraying scientific events” and is inspired by “cinematic visual techniques”. Which is to say, it’s kinetic, spacious music made out of soundsystem-shaking slabs of wavering bass and chattering pinprick rhythms that encourage movement as much as they suggest abstract imagery.
Nicolai has always had a knack for crafting art that inhabits an area between audio and visual, long before it was de rigeur – “HYbr:ID I” continues that tradition: it’s intensely visual music, even without accompaniment, and sounds like a blend of his more upfront material (best represented on the “Uni” series) and his textured “Xerrox” ambience. It’s excellent, expectedly, like a VW Passat. Play loud, maybe in the Passat?