This second album from Greek IDM / techno producer Petros Voudouris under his Pridon alias apparently emerges as the result of three years of beavering away in the studio, and indeed, it’s the first new material to surface from him since his 2005 debut album “Health Food Scroll’ on Vibrant and its swiftly accompanying “New Steine’ EP, his first release for the Athens-based Low Impedance label. Like its predecessor, “Apnea Eina’ sees Voudouris following a predominantly downbeat IDM path that’s distinctly tinged by both hiphop and dub, with nods towards his more techno-based roots also surfacing amongst the eleven tracks collected here. While many similar producers simply focus upon building pristine, digitally-finessed landscapes however, Voudouris adeptly injects a tangible sense of presence and mass into his tracks through the deft deployment of sampled and treated instrumental elements and textures.
Opening track “She Bit Me First’s is emblematic of this approach, using a battery of live drum and percussion elements to bring out a real sense of rhythmic lustre to the ebbing backdrop of beeping melodic tones and trailing synth pads; indeed, the weary-sounding drums near the end beautifully suit the sense of wounded melancholy generated. It’s a factor also apparent in the case of “Flask Borden’ striking collision of crackling Funkstorung-esque IDM-hop rhythms and vast, echoing horn calls as gorgeous sampled swirls of orchestration drag things off into a psychedelic haze, shortly before “Here Be Dragons’ locks down around a tight rhythmic pulse that’s part hypnotic motorik glide, part half-speed Detroit night drive. While the predominant mood here is a distinctly downbeat one, “Gin’ offers up a brief wander out into skittering IDM/electro junglist styles, before “Lithos’ sees the techno influences rearing back up in the mix as dark electro bass synths begin to trace a path beneath contorted DSP manipulation and flickering minimalist snare programming. An extremely impressive second album from Voudouris under his Pridon persona, “Apnea Eina’ is well worth investigating.
