4 out of 5

Label: Da! I Heard It Here

Produced by: Patrice Curtillat

Kicking around periodically since the mid 00s, France’s Poborsk – Patrice Curtillat – operates in an IDM space that will be accessible, and familiar, to fans of classic Rephlex herky-jerkers like early Squarepusher, and Come To Daddy-era Aphex, but Curtillat’s own history in the scene has given Poborsk its own sound as well, merging breaks with an almost acoustic electronic vibe, and a looseness of construction that belies quite astounding depth. ‘Astronaut Mom’ is the type of listen that has a different effect over speakers vs. headphones: the former gives the recording more space, and especially on its physical cassette release, gives it a lot of weight; the latter, meanwhile, allows one to appreciate the subtle percussion touches, and how much atmosphere is packed into each track.

Using ‘Water Tambour’ intro / interstitials and the title track as sort of structural goalposts, the album’s sound is rather liquidy, its beats flowing into one another with Drexciya warmth, or absolutely flooding a song – if I’m keeping with the water stuff – with big ol’ grooves. After some chill, spacey beats, Astronaut Mom maybe veers a bit too close to those aforementioned influences, nibbing exactly from Come To Daddy and Windowlicker and Squarepusher jazz on Archment, thus requiring a kind of wipe-the-slate-clean IDM overkill with Short Flashback. These are fun tracks, but also kind of distracting: Poborsk is capable of doing this stuff all on their own, crafting ever-shifting and exciting bangers and cool-down tracks throughout, B-side cuts like Trio and Culte Ancien impressing with how all-encompassing they are: fun, weird, delicate, and then kind of spooky, all in due time.

I’ll circle around various forms of praise for modern Rephlex-sound graduates, generally scaling from glowing to moderate depending on how much they iterate on, or accurately mimic the sound. Rarer are those who’ve ingested that music and repurposed as part of, perhaps, a larger education, contributing to the current era of IDM in a way that is wholly belonging to that artist. Poborsk is one such artist, and Astronaut Mom, maybe excepting a couple of too-cute moments, is a landmark album in that scene.