4 out of 5

Label: Ryoko

Produced by: ?

In just a few years, starting from 2020, Jonny Moy – MOY – has found a way to work within the “confines” of classic acid and IDM, without it sounding derivative, or tryhard. That’s always the dividing line to my ears – essentially, how much whichever artist seems like they’re just mimicking Aphex Twin or recycling 90s garage – but MOY has consistently danced all over that line by really sticking to kind of a set parameter of sounds, and carving out their own take. This could be work truly from a previous era, and it thus carries forth an important part of that: that it also sounds timeless.

Across the four tracks on MOY’s EP for Ryoko – a sublabel of Further Electronix, and certainly taking some inspiration from their stripped down sounds (and visuals) – MOY pushes to the borders of this approach on the bookending tunes, nodding pretty clearly to Classics- or Analogue Bubblebath styled Aphex / AFX acid, in which the harsh beats of the latter (check the animal sounds of Parrots In A Graveyard) can be smoothed over with some club-going warmth. Though these songs are perhaps overly familiar in some senses, deep within each, and especially on opener Polkarp, MOY starts to work their wiggle in, playing ever so slightly with mood and beats to scratch at the edges of our expectations. Followups Chronoslip and Deep Thunder enhance this, leaning towards D’Arcangelo precision, and taking a slow-roll approach in which the initial beats are not nearly as grabbing as the journey – opposing a lot of electro which grabs you at the outset and then massages along the way.

Being on Ryoko perhaps put some purposeful shackles on MOY’s approach here, but it proves an excellent experiment, with the EP firstly being incredibly listenable besides and limitations, but secondly far proving the artist’s abilities to define their own terms on a well-played field.