The masochist’s taste for pain generally springs from a desire for a strong sensation. There’s a tincture of this running through the veins of Reset. Dmytro Fedorenko wishes to topple a system of fullness and enervation by deepening the conditions that make it possible, until at last it flips and one again reaches point zero.
To this end, a mewling squall of melted-out electronic noise at first fuses into one big liquid, in which any sort of flatness is torched in a shambled slew of dazzling fragments. For a while pieces continue to ease out of this strange cohesion – rollercoaster sprawls swirl and sluice over their own churning debris, shifting weight, slowing back before surging anew, all while maintaining a certain balance and steadiness. In no short time at all, this form reaches a blistering peak and is rendered complete, achieved, and then gaps and variations begin to open up in pace, weight, and space.
The small battery of effects, tape loops and electronics never do begin to rankle – the music remains uncompromisingly persistent, even as it becomes less and less self-contained. At the same time certain elements thin down to pulsing embers; a series of messy life-affirming rhythms ticking away within a towering, alchemical flood. Reset is therefore concerned with nullifying sound and state of mind. To its credit, though, it doesn’t get lost in annihilation; it’s disappearances are forceful, expressive, and often gives rise to dark, full-bodied beats.
Max Schaefer
