SCSI-9 Easy As Down

[Kompakt; 2008]

Rating: 2/5

Styles: techno, minimal, house
Others: The Field, Ricardo Villalobos

Given both the availability and immediacy our present Information Age has afforded, it's somewhat of an anomaly that repetition has remained such a fundamental constituent of music. To have not suffered the same pruning that our waning collective attention span has inflicted upon so many other “humanities” perhaps testifies to its function as at least one mainstay of a timeless art form. Certain genres have always evaded this template, but repetition has by and large served as a basic element to the crafting of song. So as long as we’re talking genres, repetition stands not merely as a fragmentary aspect of electronic dance music, but operates as a driving force.

In this respect, SCSI-9’s Easy As Down functions, disappointingly, more as an exhibition of competence rather than a declaration of triumph. Over the course of the album’s 11 tracks, the Moscow duo employs a fairly uncomplicated equation: after assembling straightforward, no-frills beats and icing them with swirling instrumentation and breathy vocal samples, SCSI-9 frees this multilayered concoction to politely tread the thin boundary separating minimal from house music. While exerting the two amicably distinct subgenres, intermittent moments possessing instantaneous appeal occur throughout. But the whole affair, propelled by swarming repetition and one-dimensional melodies freeloading on subdued beats, feels much more centripetal than expansive.

Commencing with an abundance of dark swells and squiggly cacophony over quick, muted palpitations, opener “Blue Wolf from North” starts the record strong, evoking an aural interpretation of both the storied past and sweeping topography of the duo’s motherland. However, its depth fails to set the tone for the majority of the following tracks, as “Vesna, Lastic and Elliott” and “Nothing Will Change It” follow with ambient strains and wavery horns glossing over lounging basslines and subaqueous beats. That is, after the first track’s atmospherical vastness, Easy As Down emerges as what could suffice as background music to a ritzy, dimly lit hotel lobby: it’s pleasant listening, but it doesn’t really go anywhere.

Perhaps this most frustrating aspect of the album is exemplified in the beginning of the title track. With its fraught clicks and silky bass, it provides for an invigorating contrast to the majority of what has preceded it (most criminally “Boys Away,” a skulking number vaguely reminiscent of the soundtrack to the 1970s heyday of cheesy cop television shows). Anticlimactically, however, it soon sidles back into the anodyne fashion of the rest of Easy As Down.

What air SCSI-9 attempt to fabricate is not necessarily tasteless in itself: periodic surges throughout the whole of the record certainly cater to the listener. It's also the product of two widely admired DJs and a label of such profile as Kompakt deemed it worthy of their stamp. But as a whole, Easy As Down bears more potential than innate allure, ultimately leaving an unsatisfied audience wondering how much better it could have been with more focus on outward direction. This tentativeness results in a letdown: it’s a noticeable measure of self-reassurance when in fact self-actualization is attainable.

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