This debut album from Polish electronic producer Maciej Paszkiewicz as Undermathic certainly adheres to the ‘more is better’ school of production – indeed, with its towering arrangements of classically arranged keyboards, crunching steelplated hiphop rhythms and dark, post-industrial atmospheres, it’s easily one of the most grandiose sounding releases I’ve heard from the Tympanik Audio label to date. Fortuitously in this case, with ‘Return To Childhood’ Paszkiewicz manages to pull off his considerable ambition with skill, neatly merging industrial IDM and modern classical elements to create a album that flows with cinematic atmosphere – if anything, it’s certainly the lushest sounding release I’ve heard from the Chicago-based label. Opening track ‘Independence’ certainly vividly illustrates the maximal aesthetic at work here, emerging from gentle keys before crashing industrial hiphop beats lock down around the trailing classical piano arrangements; from there, it doesn’t take too long before surging overdriven synthlines rise up into the foreground, sending the entire track grinding out into a flameout of synth distortion, crashing snares and eerie minor-key pianos that sits somewhere between Nine Inch Nails and ‘Mezzanine’-era Massive Attack.
‘Understanding’ meanwhile starts as a spiraling fusion of surging broken IDM rhythms, majestic swelling synth orchestral arrangements and trailing keys before suddenly being pushed down a harrowing tunnel of ping-ponging metallic tones, before ‘Ttaggg’ ushers in a collision of trailing piano keys, curiously pitch-shifted slide guitar tones and pneumatic industrial hiphop beats that strangely calls to mind ‘Violator’-era Depeche Mode. Elsewhere, ‘Entropy’ sees things waking from out of the downbeat fugue as hammering metallic breakbeats echo out against chaotically looped samples, unsettling minor key piano arrangements and what sounds like heavily treated Eastern European strings, before ‘Everything Too Late’ drags things back down into glittering cinematic ambience as field recordings and crackling digital static provide an evocative backdrop to brooding orchestral elements, subtle guitar strings and the occasional ripple of piano keys. An impressive debut album from Undermathic that easily offers up one of Tympanik Audio’s most interesting releases in recent months, as well as one of the label’s most finely detailed offerings.
Chris Downton
