Italian born and now UK-based electronic producer Alessio Natalizia first emerged under his Not Waving alias back in 2013 with his debut album ‘Umwelt’, and since then he hasn’t looked back, going on to release no less than four more albums over the next year, including a split release with Pye Corner Audio. Two years on from his preceding ‘Human Capabilities’ collection on Emotional Response, this latest album ‘Animals’ offers up what’s being described by many as the most rave-y and dance centred collection of Not Waving tracks to date. It’s a description that’s at least partially accurate. ‘Believe’ slowly teases things open as a pulsing analogue bass arpeggio surges and buzzes against crawling krautrock drums, flurries of tribal toms coming out of the woodwork before the machines suddenly grind to a halt.
‘Head Body’ meanwhile really shows where the EBM-centred of this album lays as a distorted analogue synth pulse surges against steel-hard snare hits, pulsing 4/4 kickdrums and a wall of droning background textures in a manner that calls to mind Fuck Buttons’ armoured stomp, before ‘I Know I Know I Know’ opts for stinging acid-house grooves as waspy 303 squelches pulse against jittering hi-hats, muttered vocal samples and eerie machine squeals. If tracks such as ‘Face Attack’ see Natalizia bringing on the relentless cyborg electro grooves though, there’s still the odd step away from the clenched fist dancefloor here.
‘Tomorrow We Will Kill You’ offers up perhaps the one miss-step here, suddenly taking things off into moody downbeat rock as punching beats power beneath mantra-like vocals and chugging guitar chords in a offering reminiscent of a more minimal electronic take on post-metallers Isis, ‘They Cannot Be Replaced’ takes things out with a suitably spectral ambient outro, as brooding orchestral chords and bright synth pads trail out against a sampled interview with an evolutionary biologist. If you’re into surging, mutated EBM grooves along the lines of the aforementioned Fuck Buttons and Powell, you definitely need to check out ‘Animals.’
