2 out of 5

Label: Analogical Force

Produced by: Ben Muprhy

BufoBufo’s Ranidae EP – the artist’s first release for Analogical Force, bouncing around via a slew of EPs on different labels since 2020 – is a fitting addition to the roster, dipping into the “classic” IDM sound of (particularly) early Squarepusher and amping it up to danceable extremes. It’s a solid set of tunes, and definitely doesn’t deserve the lower rating I’m giving it, except… by the comparisons I’m putting it through.

Obviously, as always, this stuff is subjective; furthermore, every album is someone’s first, or every artist is someone’s first exposure to a genre, and that can affect how we hear something. For a listener who’s been trawling through electronica for a few decades, we’re undoubtedly going to get the “I’ve heard this before” itch maybe more than those in the prior group, and that’s where I ding Ranidae: there are some truly exciting iterations on electro happening here, befitting the “hallucinatory” mentions in the copy, but those moments are fleeting, and don’t quite feel like the focus. I’m sure the rest of that copy – which calls out brooding melodies, bittersweet synths, and so on – is true in some respects, but my ears mostly heard solid beats that delivered very predictable breaks. At the core of every track on Ranidae is a good idea, told from the start in the kind of jazzy off-beat of the title tune, but once the drums really drop, I found I could call out everything that would happen thereafter.

…Except on Magpie Inkcap. This track seems to fulfill the artist’s blend of eras and styles (house beats; glitchy breaks; those hallucinatory moments that feel cinematic and experimental) and had me caught up in its twists and turns as it built in emotion. Followup Asperitas carries on some of that, but retreat back to what I’d consider IDM norms soon after.

Analogical Force is guilty of these kinds of releases on occasion, and I really can’t blame them. They’re fun. And depending on your entry point to the scene, may feel very fresh. I also don’t mean to suggest that there’s purposeful copying going on: these songs are, firstly, not direct copies of anything, rather just repeating recognizable patterns and progressions; secondly, these compositions still take tons of skill I don’t have to put together; and thirdly, we all repeat what came before, consciously or subconsciously. It’s inevitable. My hope – what I look for – are those that bring new influences to those old ones, and that’s what I hear only glimmers of on Ranidae, to an extent that only the one mentioned track really held my attention throughout.