Totakeke - On The First Of November

Title: On The First Of November
Artist: Totakeke
Genre: Electronic
Release Date: 28th June 2010
Label: Tympanik Audio



Album Review

You know that feeling? You’re reading the title of an album, looking at the cover, in this case of autumnal coloured leaves lying in the ground and you picture exactly how the music must sound like according to that. In the following we’ll find out if what I pictured for the sound of ‘On The First Of November’ was right. The intro to the first of 10 untitled tracks is exactly what you’re expecting with a mournful piano breaking out of a loop of stuttering synth sounds, creating a hypnotic swirl as seconds pass. It’s making the basis for the tribal-like drum gravitations, converging with static noise cascades to establish a surging texture that leads into the rather danceable structure. That’s a part not entirely succeeding and there’s inarguably been better of Mokros in that department. However, the ambience is top notch. Later on it suggests a lake in full spate. Setting off with punctuating, bass laden beats tells it won’t become a slow ride we’re being taken on with the second track. The straight, hammering rhythms evolving are the soil for elements of glitch and experimental industrial incursions.

One of its most interesting features is the ringing array of melodies atop a vintage sounding foundry. Track number three kicks off with establishing kind of a medieval atmosphere, taking a backseat to making way for an infectious beat dominating most of it in a more or less harsher fashion. Track number 5 strikes a rather complicated tone right from the start with a broken structure under clouds of ominous melody, coupled with bell-like ringing before a distorted oscillation leads over into a laboratory of boundless sonic experimentalism with clashing builds of gradually ascending complexity and shifting fashion with effects added and removed almost constantly. Something  that’s recurring in number 8, which presents TOTAKEKE at its best and hides surprises at every turn it takes, and it takes a whole lot of those while all the time retaining an air of danceability. Something you couldn’t say about the tenth and closing chapter of the disc.

Bathed in melancholy it is, compounding longing strings with reflective piano, bearing remembrance of what’s lost now forever and what can never come back again. That scenery is underscored by an ever-evolving set of intermingling structures, sometimes seeming to bleed desperation. In parts it has become just what I expected from the cover. But you shouldn’t judge a book simply by its cover. It didn’t tell anything about the mass of aggressiveness inside, how it’s pushing the music into unexplored realms that couldn’t be touched by melody alone. Whatever Mokros was dealing with at the time he was creating ‘On The First Of November’, I hope it helped him coming to get along with it better. Anyway, despite some flaws with too standard dancing rhythms for my tastes this has become a standout release.


Tracklist

01. Untitled 01 - 12:58
02. Untitled 02 - 6:50
03. Untitled 03 - 5:44
04. Untitled 04 - 7:18
05. Untitled 05 - 5:56
06. Untitled 06 - 7:10
07. Untitled 07 - 8:51
08. Untitled 08 - 5:08
09. Untitled 09 - 6:06
10. Untitled 10 - 6:55


Line-Up

Frank Mokros


Website

http://www.myspace.com/elekatota / http://www.facebook.com/elekatota


Cover Picture




Rating

Music: 8
Sound: 9
Extras: -
Total: 8.5 / 10


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