admx-71: coherent abstractions

Adam X is back with his third album release under his industrial guise, ADMX-71. Following releases with the legendary label Hands and his own imprint, Sonic Groove Experiments, Adam paired up with L.I.E.S Records in 2014 for The Redacted Files, a 12" of slowed-down and tense EBM wizardry. Adam now returns to the L.I.E.S. front with Coherent Abstractions, an album of singular experiments that pull from every corner of electronic music's landscape into a comprehensive and propulsive full-length. Coherent Abstractions pulsates with fractured rhythms, vacillating melodies, and mesmerizing compositions that showcase Adam's impressive history working in all aspects of the underbelly of electronic music. Noise and industrial elements seep into the album's 11 songs, churning the cold and abrasive into feverish new territory. Though Coherent Abstractions operates primarily in sounds of solitude, guest vocalist Janina joins "Bound and Broken" for a rare vocal collaboration on an ADMX-71 track. We also hear a frantic vocal performance from the producer on "Nearing Obliteration," which is undoubtedly the apex of the album. Throughout the album the music sweeps from breakbeat noir and anxious electronic dub to reflective industrial modes, making Coherent Abstractions an engaging and varied listen, updating a late-'80s EBM tone into modern sound design environments while pushing a reverence for the past and heading into the deep unknown of the future. For those unfamiliar with Adam's deeply rooted history in the New York underground, he and his brother, Frankie Bones, pioneered techno in a post-disco, pre-Giuliani New York City through the late '80s and onward past the '90s, producing countless records under various guises and finally opening their own shop and record label, Sonic Groove. At the same time they began throwing renegade parties, known as Storm Rave, throughout the five boroughs -- a practice that was unheard of at the time in such a major US metropolis and opened the door for what was to come.