IDM, minimalist d’n’b
I think I first came across Ulla’s work on MySpace, a very long time ago. It was during the period when musicians in the same network would find you and then in response you would place hastily photoshopped “thanks for the add!” messages on their boards, carrying band and EP names, and it was all one nice music party, plus a bunch of emos and the worst CSS in the world. I fucking miss MySpace.
Anyway, I found some of her tracks via MySpace and some via MP3.com (yes, really) which carried “Tokyo 6pm” into my ears and I was lost instantly.
In truth, I’ve already reviewed this album, although I can’t remember exactly who it was for (maybe for her label, Notochord?) It was providing a soundbite synopsis that pretty much said that this is crystal-sharp IDM and complete headphone-fuel. I meant it back then and I still mean it today.
There’s space here - open and modern like stark and hard white-grey architecture - but it’s a space filled with details that are reminiscent of Japanese technical design and wonderful emotive sweeps. Framing this is a real perfectionist focus on complex layers of accurately scattered percussion. These combine to make this one of my favourite albums, let alone IDM, providing what I generally term “coding music”. This describes tracks that for years I hadn’t identified a genre for, but eventually worked out were something along the lines of tech-step jungle and complex, minimalist drum’n’bass.
“Destroy you, with my robots”
Three of the tracks are remixes and are extremely high quality, making wonderful companions of the originals and blending right on in with the whole album. Semiomime’s remix of “Known Issues” makes me think we might be related as they know exactly what sort of drums I like.
Highlights
- Glitter - this was my ringtone for ages until I hit the Mirror’s Edge soundtrack by Solar Fields
- Known Issues (Semiomime remix)
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