The Other Side of Chill is a split digital album presenting five songs each from two electronic musicians at differing stages in their career – relative newcomer Italian Patrizio Piastra who goes by the moniker edPorth, and the more experienced Macedonian Vladimir Mitreski aka aiRless pRoject. The pairing of these two seems like a natural fit, both trading in down-tempo ambient electronica.
EdPorth’s tracks take up the first half of the album, and his songs are a great mix of sounds found from Apparat, Four Tet and various acts off of the Cut label. The long and beautiful ‘Make Room’ is the definite album highlight and is akin to Burial with a propulsive garage beat and gorgeous ambient background with droning synths, piano flourishes and warm vocal samples.
Compared with EdPorth’s half, which gives you all the answers straight away, aiRless pRoject’s tracks are certainly less immediate and club-ready. I found his tracks to be slightly less rewarding than edPorth’s; diverse at the cost of sounding unfocused, and less concerned with melody. 10-minute centrepiece ‘Bending Handmade Glass’ is a real treat though and harnesses the best elements of the rest of his tracks here – its a winding track that switches between a glitch section with subtle touches of IDM and a sinister vocal ambience.
This is a lot of fun to listen to – edPorth’s half in particular is very encouraging, but it’s very heartening on the whole to hear the two musicians who trade in quite different styles working so effectively together as an entire piece.
Wyatt Lawton-Masi
