We got our hands on the second and final release from NPVR, the duo of Nik Void and the late Peter Rehberg, founder of Editions Mego.
Recorded in Vienna 6 months after their acclaimed debut in 2017, this album was kept in the vaults due to Rehberg’s passing. It stands as another example of their exquisite collaboration based not only on similar setups but also akin sensitivities.
‘Raw To The Core’, its opener and shortest track, feels intense, with metallic motifs around immersive oscillations. Like an attempt to calibrate their intricate machinery to modulate dark frequencies before ‘Keep Former’ shapes up as a favourite of us.
The second track starts with a marked pace until harmonious yet vanishing keyboards join the collage in the form of a halo, deepening the oneiric realm. Panned effects complete the imagery with psychedelic touches. Landing is not a simple process though, as bits from an imaginary digital swamp arrive to revolve around, leaving a trace of enchanted winds in decay.
Closing the first half of the album, ‘Invisible Man’ doesn’t take long to submerge in a new atmosphere, within a minute we dive head-first in the duo’s modular explorations, repetitive yet always different. The eerie intro of ‘Ok But No’ brings some echoes of ‘Keep Former’, and it slowly unfolds its layered texture, full of static under the rain, atmospheric, with hints of vaporous shimmering.
Ending on a high note, ‘I_C_D_S’ is playful, taking the core essence of techno and stripping it down to leave just some remnants, enough to stimulate the limbic system; then it goes even deeper in modulations and bass, to dig regions where what’s being filtered makes us crave a soundsystem according to the occasion.
33 34 won’t just satisfy the need for new and exciting music, it’ll also stimulate the consciousness in unexpected levels. The in-detail crafting of this work follows a sharp and inspired intuition, result of 2 artists working on the undefined and sometimes ineffable edges of sound expression.
NPVR – 33 34 sees the light through Editions Mego on the 1st of March.
