4 out of 5

Label: Lapus Records

Produced by: John M Davies

Glitchy, downbeat, immersive IDM. Whatever’s going on here, I love it. Even starting from the song titles, we build up an interesting sounding set: the title track conjures up an austere, cold vibe; an emotionless watcher of what’s to unfold; Grey Goo scenario references an end-of-world technology-fueled event; Gong Zahlensender appears to be a reference to a German numbers station; and Compound Eyes – here, we combine with the ASCII cover art of eyeballs – makes for an alien-esque visual. Again, whatever the story is, I’m down.

The music brings that sense of wonder and weirdness, as Datasette lets cold, deep beats that occasionally blip into more driving BPM runs get coated in an atmosphere of reverb, hazy vocal clips, and is-this-thing-broken clicks and clacks. The artist’s control over the various percussion sounds is astounding, with organic sounding single-use claps of cymbals or other drums suddenly shifting our understanding of forming and fading melodies. Each side of this EP has, I’d say, a track that’s slightly steadier and then one than leans more into IDM, but there’s also something of a general buildup across the whole listen, from somewhat linear to more abstract, with the closer summarizing elements of all we’ve heard, crafted into a new experience. I get some Lithops’ dissection from this, and its core stretches back to Aphex Twin ambience, but the album is its own beast, crossing between head-bobbing grooves and expansive sound collages of both organic and electronic noises, meeting in a dark and open field.

The one place where I sort of fall out with some tracks is their lack of conclusion. Datasette excellently amps up each experience, layering in more and more effects, but the endings can be underwhelming, just sort of stripping away those layers and petering out. This is fine for leading us from song to song, but there is a feeling like the B-side could’ve landed us on something more decisive for an ending.