nthng - Two People
Dub music has always fascinated me. Its rich delays and trailing fades feel like a gateway into a different world. The true beauty of top music comes from the relationship between dynamics through the use of effects. The latest showing from nthng, titled Two People, was an eye-opener in this regard. nthng plays with sound and erosions effortlessly within manufactured space. His tracks flow between soothing climaxes, which resonate through the ear canal before subsiding to quiet echoes that provide an education on the core of dub music.
Like dub music, Two People is explosive at times with euphoric highs, such as 'Echo track', which alone cuts through the saturated dub techno scene. The intelligent use of dynamics makes the environment within the record crystal clear. The sparse intro is interrupted by a cacophony of buttery smooth stabs that slice through the atmospheres with a subtle serration, like when scissors glide through parcel paper. Gritty tubular stabs snake and dissipate into the void while warm rubbles and fizzing hats cascade in a call back to his earlier works, only this is much more refined. However, as I stated before, dynamics have ups and downs. The purely ambient style heard on the record's opener, 'Two People', is such a departure from nthng previous work. As he tries to venture further into the ambient sides of electronic music, his inexperience is evident, and it fails to wow in any significant way. It's due to its reliance on pretty synths and evocative vocals, which feels like a substitute for the creativity shown in other areas of the record. The track lacks bite and personality at best, sounding generic for a producer of this calibre.
Now, I'm all for artists experimenting with stylistic changes and venturing into new genres. In fact, nthng does this exceptionally well on the track 'In Static', which sits in a pocket between genres as it incorporates subtleties of ambient peace together with a combination of dubstep and jazz, much like the tracks found on Deep Heads Records. It allows you to sink into and absorb the looping chords that become a hook within themselves. There is such care taken with this less-is-more approach that you yearn for the smokey percussion with each revolution. Furthermore, nthng's step into the abstract bears fruit, as shown by the incandescent final track, 'Don't Be Scared'. Glassy pads coat your ears with thick vibrations that shift in pitch, alluding to something darker underneath. The motif "Don't be scared" is whispered before whipping into an IDM powerhouse that keeps its values despite the added percussion, transforming the melancholic ambient into something more Warp Records adjacent. The Two People EP is the logical next step in nthng's evolution. There's still an emphasis on atmosphere, but things are tighter and more refined. nthng's new sound departs from the ruff and house grooves the artist was synonymous with throughout his early works, yet this darker, stripped-back sound adds a lot of attitude and is a great new direction for the 0000 label.
Tracklist:
Two People
Echo Trak
In Statics
Dot Be Scared
Label: 0000 (2024)
Nthng - Two People
