Hungarian artist Robert Bereznyei, alter ego of Tigrics, explores the aesthetics of textures and ambient, minimal sound art recordings on his debut full length release for London-based Highpoint Lowlife. Though his compositions are bereft of traditional forms of melody, Bereznyei assembles in its place assorted samples of scratchings, squelchings and shifting drone elements. Synki explores much of the same territory as his previous releases on smaller European imprints, yet brings a heightened sense of maturity and progression. Highpoint Lowlife have limited the release to just 100 CD-R copies presented in a slimline DVD case, with hand-drawn artwork by Bereznyei himself. It’s a sublime effort, making the tactile experience with the packaging almost as important as the relationship with the songs held within.
Collected sounds flitter across ‘Igric’, from bird chants to rattling cymbals. Underneath it, a steady drone of something that could be a delayed synth fills the lower frequencies. The beauty of Synki is listening in for the detail, as unfamiliar sounds sit in harmony with those that are perhaps second nature to us. ‘Ja’tzkin’ hovers across its twenty minute running time, crackling leaves and screeching bus brakes throughout, maintaining a steady pace amidst its stylistic shifts.
‘Enabel’ is not as strong as its surrounds, falling into the trap of monotonous rather than inventive ambience. It takes almost six minutes for it to reach the pay-off, a collection of stuttering and glitchy tweaks protruding from the surface. ‘Synki & Bug’ closes the album with a curiously traditional sound. Almost orchestral in style, it unfurls over a languid fourteen minutes and ends with reverberating drone. Like many of the compositions across it, Synki suffers from being a little too long and a little too much of the same, but what redeems it is the clarity of Bereznyei’s expression amongst the first four tracks. His voice is distinct and hints at an accessible minimalism as opposed to a purely abstract, avant-garde one.
Alexandra Savvides
