hunter/game: adaptation

Known for dramatic dance tunes that have found their way onto labels such as Innervisions, Last Night On Earth, and their global event brand and record imprint Just This, Italian duo Hunter/Game has developed a uniquely expressive yet subtly arranged variant of techno. The two producers based in Milan and New York turned in two installments for Kompakt's Speicher dance couture series in 2015, with "Hexagon" reaching the number-one spot on Resident Advisor's Top 50 Charted Tracks February 2015 list. For Adaptation, their full-length debut, Emmanuele Nicosia and Martino Bertola decamped to a chalet in the Dolomite Alps near a ski resort closed for the season, which, as they explain, is "precisely where we came up with the concept for Adaptation." Contemplating biological evolution and the development of contemporary society side by side, the album's track titles and sonic details refer to "the adaptation of the human being to the modern metropolis as well as the adaptation of music to a collective technological era that has become the manifesto of our generation." While that might seem like a particularly broad and abstract scope for a techno album, it evidently informs its flow, from the gauzy "Intro (Walking Unobserved)" and the slowly unfurling, string-laden "Declino" to the sweeping title-track, the brooding banger "Origins," and the lyrical "Silver." Morphing ideas, melodies, and textures with consummate ease, Hunter/Game constantly find missing links between sounds, switching from foreboding melancholy to glorious serenity in a heartbeat while keeping the arrangements clearly outlined and impactful. With a background in painting, sculpture, and architecture and a distinct interest in abstract expressionism, both Nicosia and Bertola are well equipped to deal with complex concepts in an immediately comprehensible manner, as can be seen in the artwork for their Just This imprint and Adaptation's cover; inspired by Möbius and M. C. Escher and produced in conjunction with long-standing creative partner Artiva Design, these deceptively simple forms aim to expand their two-dimensionality into a third dimension by pure imagination -- "just like the music," as the artists like to add. It is said that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, and indeed nothing could be more applicable to Adaptation, with which the duo presents a full-length exploration of a distinct sound cosmos, at once coy and bold, and with each cut focusing on yet another artfully executed twist supplementing the no-fuss, all-impact setting of beats, bass, and synths. includes cd copy of album