RESTOCK ARRIVING START OF DECEMBER
A typically densely-packed, idea-forward new double disc-er from Bryan Muller's Skee Mask project, what now must surely be considered one of the strongest new(ish) voices in club music. Eight or so albums and innumerable 12s in ten years suggest a prolific creator, but what I think has also become increasingly clear is Muller's rare ability to tie together disparate histories and ideas as if all part of the same hive mind. Which is, I suppose, what an ever-mutating dance music always has done even if no one was mapping it. Like the records that precede it, Resort is an overtly multi-speed affair, switching restlessly between varying interpretations of ambient, techno, IDM, breakbeat, mirco-house++ in endlessly rewarding manner. Some of the pad sounds here are so sharp they almost (almost!) give Autechre a run for their money, though Muller has nowhere near the same surgical tendencies as Rochdale's finest, softening out the edges with ambi-techno excursions reminiscent of Huerco S' after-hours bliss, ebullient IDM that plays like Ulrich Schnauss with the BPM pitched up, or inverted frown braindance ala golden era Rephlex. And that's barely half the story. The something-for-everyone approach can sometimes mean not much for anyone in particular, but Muller doesn't fall into that trap. Resort is purely giving, jacking all trades, master of one and all.
