4 out of 5

Label: Kaer’Uiks

Produced by: Poborsk

Poborsk’s general sound remains utterly unique: the percussive clicks and watery plunks of keys concoct an almost ambient range of effects, but sped up to glitch levels. There’s definitely a large dose of Tobin ISAM-like open-endedness – swooshes of sound, burbling creaks – but Poborsk tends to purposefully maintain borders upon the sounds they select. Naturally, this can then limit the impact of an album: Theta Cadence immediately inspires with its deep, round bass and glittery, unceasing synth clatter, but the pace and compositonal approach – a stutter step, hip-hop beat gets IDMed all over – remains kinda consistent for the first few tracks, leading to some admitted tedium.

But I think there’s a top-down structure here, one that I could maybe pick through and align with track names like Azathoth, and Dream Cycle, and that makes me want to grant some grace to that tedium. At the same time, without forcing that analysis: Theta’s game clearly changes with the slowed, more patient Boars FX, a few tunes in. Here, Poborsk shows some patience, flip-flopping their template (ambience becomes the focus, glitch the background) that then sets us up for the rest of the album. While songs are still essentially composed of the same elements, the path gets a bit moodier and grimier; the album opens and it’s cool, but maybe without clear emotional context. Past Boars, though, it keeps building in weight and a kind of undercurrent of weirdness – phase Poborsk’s style through Windowlicker glitch – with Azathoth peaking the energy with an almost garden path scale of beats.

Now, when you revisit Theta Waves openers, the lighter tone has more context; the sense of the album as a journey – an excellently, excitingly crafted one – is more palpable, and affecting.