3 out of 5

Label: Rephlex

Produced by: Ovuca

Yowza, this took a long time to get through. Even being familiar with Ovuca’s (Aleksi Perälä) other cut-and-paste Rephlex works – tens of tracks, with many very short cuts between slightly longer, more evolved pieces – Onclements is a stretch. It’s not necessarily a fractured experience – elements emerge and reemerge; beats flow into one another – but its first disc feels like it lacks an identity. Disc 2, which is the harsher of the two, erring more toward Come to Daddy-type IDM, is much more cohesive, but it also might have a few less standout moments than on Disc 1, which are there, for sure, but I feel like you have to give yourself over to it a few times before they become apparent. Once you have its bouncy pace down, which slips from dancehall stuff to skittery joking around, finally on to slightly more spacey, Astrobotnia-flared compositions at its tail end, it’s quite a rewarding and exciting spin. But, at least for me, it took my ears long enough that I sincerely started to wonder if my affection for Ovuca was due more to a Rephlex dedication than actually digging his work. Some relistens of other Perälä tracks (especially his later, excellent, Colundi work) soothed me on that, and then moving on to Disc 2 further reminded me how these little slices of beats and effects can sync up effectively; shifting back to that first, 41-track disc, it instantly landed more firmly, but the wear of having to, at one point, force myself through the music certainly had an effect: Onclements is my least favorite of the Rephlex Ovuca offerings. Its 2-discs are spattered with plenty of excellent moments, but its breadth is… too broad. That it only congeals into an album on its back half just sort of underlines the odds and ends feeling of its first disc, though a patient relisten does offer rewards.