Review: Javier - Expresión / Abstracción

There is a paradox in the mainstream club environment. Hordes of people gather in a darkened room, only to bathe in music that strives for a euphoric ecstasy beyond the sweat and low ceilings – seeking transcendence amongst a blanket of bodies that heaves and jostle as one blanket of drunken drear, with PA systems churning out music rich in the very colours and energy that these little discos caves strive to blot out. What if the music was reflective of the shadowy gloom and dirty perspiration, encapsulating the potentially ominous sight of a throng of shadows throbbing as one?

Perhaps it’d sound similar to Expresión / Abstracción; a record that thrives off techno’s core organs of rhythmic incessancy and exaggerated low frequency, without resorting to escapist vibrancy and melodic solace. Javier’s tracks are cramped and repetitive – like pressing my face against cold, vertical concrete, with only the occasional bass motif or sweeping synthesizer strobe preventing the album’s submergence in a total pitch black. Empty echoes ricochet off of the primitive beat constructions, smeared like mud across the walls of the stereo field, while the heartbeat-esque recurrence of the bass drum starts to adopt a disturbingly hypnotic form. Tracks are kept concise (generally falling between four and seven minutes), but the mind unravels in dark thoughts nonetheless: what if the end never comes?