4 out of 5

Label: Analogical Force

Produced by: Jonny Moy

An aptly titled wallop of uplifting electro beats, Supermassive is celebratory of its scene, similar to the way Jonny Moy’s previous Analogical Force release elevated IDM / acid classic sounds to a modern style – accessible but uniquely identifiable to the artist. MOY continues that here, shifting the familiar touches to the background in favor of building, rousing beats, bridging gaps from ambience to acid to house, but always with an eye on where a track is going. This stuff is designed to hype you up, but it feels organic at the same time. Opener Binary System is extremely confident in this, wading through waves of soothing noise before finally dropping a beat a significant way into the track; the title track absolutely kills by bringing in a xylophone-sounding layer that’s just, like “why isn’t every artist doing this?” levels of awesome; and Cyg X-1 dirties things up with some straight electro squelch… that Moy can’t help but add some further melody to.

Closer Hypernova is my only knock, here, and not even a big one: it just doesn’t bring anything new to the set, somewhat remixing the approach of Binary System, which would be totally fine, although my brain has a hard time wrapping itself around a slightly off-timed beat that doesn’t payoff until the final section, which throws my immersion off slightly. It’s a pretty risky move sneaked into its slickness, and thus still a pretty awesome tune, just the only moment in the EP that takes me out of it.