Ben Kaczor’s music both constructs and receives sonic worlds that question our received notions of physicality, time and space.
'Shell Seven' - the atmospheric A1 on his new EP KCZ002 - begins with a heartbeat running under a tolling chime, almost marking time while subverting the very structures we employ to describe our experience in the 'now'. The call of Angels and Sirens in the background suggests communication with transcendent, intangible and non-corporeal worlds in which the past, present and future do not exist.
Casia achieves a similar effect with otherworldly warping and wobbling sounds reminiscent of the ambience of a Tarkovsky film. As the track builds, it slowly engages the conventions of techno while never allowing its strictures to overwhelm these supernatural forces, as they coexist with the hushed sighs and suggestive whispers of ethereal beings.
The B1, 'Black Dolphin', has the charged momentum and ominous quality of a bad dream in which one is not afraid. Looping scales and refined percussive details drive this balance of positive and negative via oriental atmospheres and undertones of black magic, while never letting go of the prospect of enjoyment at dancing ones way through spaces that, while exciting, aren't entirely reassuring. This is a genre-defying, original, and highly evocative EP.