Available on: Disboot EP

Not sure who Downliners Sekt is, or are [well, we now know there’s two of them – Ed], but I am a fan of the Ardkore unspelling. More than that, I am a massive fan of all 20 minutes of this EP. Sold to your reviewer as ‘it sounds a bit like Autechre’, I am getting something entirely different from it. I’m not sure how best to put this subtlely and without causing offence, but at times it’s very reminiscent of a certain erstwhile Anonymous Producer, whose moniker brings to mind a submerging, whether in the ground or at sea.

You be the judge, but the suspended-in-fog ambience, choked eighth-step beats and depressed rave diva vocal sample suggest opener ‘From Under Spinning Lights’ could quite fairly be dubbed ‘Phantom Hardware’. Less overtly robo-emo than Burial, the ‘Sekt twist the vox a tad more, so this does actually sound rather like a brave set of techno archaeologists went rummaging in Tutankhamen’s crate and found themselves confronted by the unsettled ghost of Nightcrawlers’ ‘Push the Feeling On’, its lost soul shambling around, its chains clanking rhythmically on the cold, hard concrete floor.

What’s interesting is that sometimes the beats don’t flow as easily as they could – and it’s an intentional lack of flow that really adds to the mix, when normal beats would have been easier to pull off. ‘Incerta Glòria’’s looping rhythm sounds like its one beat never gets a chance to complete: it shuffles and twists, trying desperately to reach the dancefloor, but a muted beep ends its efforts, damning it to replay for the duration, never quite achieving satisfaction. It’s like a techno-ancient Greek punishment; Tantalus of the underwater dancehall, always straining for that fruit, hanging just out of reach. It’s awesome, as is ‘White Dawn’, whose patchwork rhythms and ‘I feel so cold; so alone’ hook talking in cryogenic sleep, frozen in a nightmare in which it’s dreaming it’s on Venetian Snares’ Rossz csillag alatt született; a song like this could fit, quite comfortably, tagged on the slab with ‘Öngyilkos vasárnap’.

The best is saved for ‘Selfish G’, almost an issue of ‘What If?’ focusing on the fantasy scenario of ‘Timbaland still being good’. On this song, Downliners move from the (justified) adoration of Todd Edwards on too much cough mixture, as the vocal ghost in the machine is here joined by some backing ghouls. Still the beats tick, tock away like an ever-present reminder of musical mortality, while the vocal arrangement sounds for all the world like it could be Aaliyah. And it very well could be, in an alternate universe where the late chanteuse doesn’t die, and Timbaland and his steroid habit don’t end up working with Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado. ‘What if’, indeed.

Robin Jahdi