Klanguage – Databass

With absolutely no press release or other info accompanying this, I might as well get on with talking about the music.

Yumade produce a striking and individual blend of techno and trance, building up patterns of sounds and morphing them around while you watch get picked up by their magnetic style. Cure A Sao kicks things off, a tribal tech-housey opener with quirky vocal stabs and a nice downtempo groove that gets things warmed up nicely. Traktopelle follows and has a percussive, textured feel with a filtered industrial lead, and a definite techno vibe that’s reminiscent of Jeff Mills.

Le Reel Simplifie is interesting, it sounds almost like Yumade make a solid musical root on top of which various instruments and modules malfunction, the result being a techno-centric teleport. Title track Klanguage, recorded live at last year’s Trance Café Festival in Japan, has an infectious groove and good energy – it draws you right in, and with surprises at every turn it certainly keeps you guessing. Tempo Drome is a sparse vision of the future, sort of like the decayed buildings deep underground from an old civilisation, with an added funky bass as though things are waking up after a thousand year hibernation.

Tell It Sweet, possibly the most conventional track on offer, is a progressive-psychedelic hybrid with a bouncy bass, a light and tight feel, and good sounds rolling around the pixel-perfect rhythm section. Effortless, in other words.

Closing the album with the playful, proto-jungle Linear Bazar, this makes for a genuinely fresh and exciting album from a top-class project. Nice and well produced, there’s plenty of depth and innovation on display here.