New York-by-way-of-Taiwan deep house experimentalist Policy (Francis Hsueh) parts the 100% Silk curtain and emerges from the blacklit back room with a subway map of Taipei. As his new tape The Republic bumps from the PA, he tries to explain something to you. You can’t hear a damn thing over his chugging basslines and syncopated sleigh bells. It’s nice. He points at the map and then points at a speaker. He wants to say to you: “This is this.” You nod and you keep swaying. If this music mimics a Taiwanese subway journey, you want to go there. “Take me there,” you say, and he doesn’t hear you either.
Press play on “Shuanglian” and enter Hsueh’s pulsing railway grid. Classic house tropes (see: stuttering acid lines, driving handclaps) meld with more mind-expanding fare in the subterranean darkness. Bit-crushed synth bursts take over the corners of the mix as a filter spirits the bassline down a tributary tunnel. Hsueh transfixes us with ballistic forward motion, letting us glimpse select roof-shaking strategies for a few moments through the window. The elements he presents us feel no need to compete. Fragments overlap cooperatively for their airtimes, sketching the influence of an external system set in motion, spiraling through the earth on a path dictated by decisions made decades prior.
You can grip a copy of Policy’s The Republic from Midheaven distribution, in a tape batch alongside jams from Potions and Cosby. You can also find it for sale at Not Not Fun.
• Policy: http://policy-tracks.com
• 100% Silk: http://www.listentosilk.com
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