Samuli Kemppi - Dark Matter
While most of us are used to dark and menacing songs in dance music. darkness is usually achieved through minor chords, subtle dissonance, aggressive distortions or other such audio effects. However, Finnish producer and co-founder of Blacklabel Distillery, Samuli Kemppi, entangles a sense of cosmic dread into their 2010 Mote-Evolver release, Dark Matter. While these explorations into space and the vast darkness it holds weren't revolutionary in 2010, Samuli Kemppi freshens and revitalises these ideas through a crisp production style that forces the listener to confront their place in an ever-expanding universe.
Samuli's utilisation of huge kick-tail rumbles that suck the air from the lungs, and heavy throbbing sub-basses that act like the gravitational pull of a black hole creates such a sonic expense that I can't help but imagine the vast nothingness of space. Kemppi's style shines in the rhythmic quality brought to each track, which translates to feelings of tension under imminent danger. On the title track, 'Dark Matter', Kemppi uses techniques you'd usually find in genres such as dub techno or ambient. Long-running delays and immensely huge reverbs that, when applied to Kemppi's otherworldly and cosmic synths, craft a chilling calm sense to the music like an inevitability to the sound. Mammoth stabs add to the scale of the tune as phasing hi-hats act as restrained risers continuing that tension throughout.
On the other hand, 'Wormhole' uses wailing synthesisers that travel across the like satellites or shooting stars while the atmospheric sounds drag them deep into the wormhole. The delays build rhythms on top of rhythms while the hypnotic loop subtly morphs and progresses, creating feelings of astral travel. The ability to create dense low-ends flanked by dubbed-out synthesisers isn't the only trick up Kemppi's sleeve. In 'Structure Formation', Kemppi Produces a much harder-hitting and aggressive dance track. What separates 'Structure Formation' from the other two tracks on the EP is that you serve high-frequency content. However, Kemppi strips it back, keeping a rumbling baseline at the start of every bar, and hypnotises with a glistening arpeggio. The effect is that Kemppi can make the track a whole hell of a lot more aggressive while keeping a psychedelic edge to the production.
Refrain from coming into the EP to find catchy melodies or motifs to cling to. This style is about crafting atmosphere and pulling the listener further into a hypnotic trance, and Samuli Kemppi provides this in spades. Dark Matter explores in darkness music through unconventional means. It allows the listener to be hypnotised into a spell as you're forced to look inwards. Rhythms swell within these hugely foreboding sonic spaces. Synthesisers evoke the feeling of being a minuscule speck in the universe. This is highly recommended, and it's true escapism through music.
Tracklist:
Dark Matter
Wormhole
Structure Formation
Label: Mote-Evolver (2010)
Samuli Kemppi - Dark Matter
