anja zaube: thicket

The EP starts abruptly, like walking into a club mid-set. There is no build up to the title track - you are there, running, moving, getting away from your life with a desperate sense of escape. Her sound is truly original. The title track is littered with precise messiness; scratched sounds that recur, drawing you deeper and deeper into that hole burning in your consciousness. Tinkering bells flicker as the layers get thicker, struggling deeper into this overgrown vacant lot, lost and scratched as Zaube's unwavering rhythm drives through each episode. This is the track to take us away from life and sink us into a darkroom of pleasure. After "Thicket" is Grebenstein's remix. It is less urgent - more like a re-telling of some primal scene to a therapist. The elements that Zaube uses to explore the darkest places of Berlin techno are recounted in a slower tempo, letting us linger in these deep holes a little longer before the track wakes and sets off again in furious pursuit. "Branches" is Zaube's pensive reflection on the same elements that Grebenstein drew out of thicket. It is a much slower track, drifting in Doppler effects over a deep rhythmic drumming that is as sparse as the beat in "Thicket" was driving. Everything is disassociated through the droning; we are miles away from the frantic pace in which we started. I've been circling around the same forest, a labyrinthine path that leads me deeper into the spaces I first dreamt about. This is fantastic, hypnotic techno. It has a looseness held in check by Zaube's clever rhythmic articulation. It drifts into some terrifying soundscapes, and intelligently keeps moving through them.