~scape

scape13

		system
system Things like "System" do not happen very often within the genre of electronic music. Three producers, who not only have been close friends for a long time but can also look back on a very successful joint musical history, decide to start a new project, dedicated to special musical likings all the three of them share, but what they mainly produce on their own, when working on tracks for their individual solo projects. However, "System" is nothing like a hobby, but a second, equally important joint project from Thomas Knak, Anders Remmer and Jepser Skaaning. Copenhagen, Denmark: For years the trio has been busy producing one great album after another under the moniker "Future 3". While this project, however, over the years turned more and more into popmusic, Knak (known as well as OPIATE and producer of the important tracks on the recent Björk album "Vespertine"), Remmer (aka Dub Tractor) and Skaaning ( aka Acoustic) realised, besides a big variety of other influences, a common love for Dub and the sonic trademarks of this music: Reverb, Echo & Bass. A love which is the core element of their new project "System". However, Dub is transferred into completely new environments and is just a starting point, the smallest common denominator, a always returning reference, the base for a very modern, experimental sound, guided by a love for reduced, warmth full of digital static, motivated by an overwhelming interest for new software tools and driven by the gift of using these new technical possibilities in a very subtle way and integrating them into the sonic spectrum. Let's be honest here: Can you think of musical experiments of that kind which actually have such a flow? Welcome to "System", which consolidates and extends the afore mentioned qualities of Knak, Remmer and Skaaning. The secret lies in the fact of how new tracks were achieved. Working as a collective is the key sentence here. It might mean less individual control on one hand. It surely means a new sense of unpredictable results on the other hand. "System" is the logical inversion of "Future 3", an impressive musical documentation of an exploration of the other end of the sonic scale, a consequent reduction of elements and a concentration on key structures like spaceiousness and Dub. Tracks like "Park" sound like they were produced while comfortably lying on a big, cosey sofa. A small rhythmic noise, a filtered something, formerly known as a piano and finally a melody as shiny as the good old space capsule Sputnik. "Spy" is set under a flickering streetlight, drawing its loops mysteriously through an echo-lit backroom. "Micro" is a noisy thunderstorm screenshot, full of strange feedback patterns, woven into each other. The list of these quiet sensations in sounddesign is endless. Let's all cross our fingers that Knak, Remmer & Skaaning will spend a lot of time on this new project in the future. Thaddeus Herrmann