Hinterlandt’s latest release Through the Motions is a compilation album featuring a handful of Australian artists including AFXJIM, Broken Chip, Godswounds, Lawrence English, Puzakhi, Seaworthy, Simo Soo and Telefonica. The premise for this release was that the included artists would build a piece of music utilising “… a handful of tiny sound snippets that were taken from the original Hinterlandt track ‘Motion’”, from his 2011 release Migration Motion Movement.
The music on this disc hops between ambient dronescapes and beat oriented tracks, all of which utilise the given sound snippets in different ways. These sound snippets are often rendered unrecognisable, making the underlying concept indiscernible for the most part. Puzakhi’s ‘Motion Sickness’ is a highlight that starts off channelling a pseudo-analog zombie videogame that later transforms into a bleak and fragmented, beat heavy industrial dub track. On the other end of the spectrum, Broken Chip relies on swirling gloss toned distorted ambiences to create a dense futuristic urban soundscape. Elsewhere, Lawrence English reverts to familiar deep penetrating immersive dronescapes, whilst Simo Soo creates comical 8-bit hardcore trance complete with subliminal vocal interjections.
Overall, I don’t know what to think about this release. It is a real mixed bag, that at times genre hops a little too much for my liking. I feel that rather than sounding like a cohesive album or compilation the music runs as if it is off an iPod shuffle mix, this may not be an issue for all listeners though. That being said, most of the tracks on Through the Motions stand strong individually but do not work so well as a complete picture.
Luke Bozzetto
*
