Last year, Brooklyn’s Chasing Voices emerged as one of those anonymous projects, replete with spooked-out artwork, limited pressings, and a shadowy demeanor that bled deeply into the music itself. Because of this esoteric approach, the project’s unforgettable debut Acidbathory took its time creeping up, and by the time it had infiltrated the public consciousness, the project had already released its second transmission, Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit. The latter title (“nothing comes from nothing”) offers a disclaimer for those put off by the cloaked approach: though it may have appeared from “nothingness,” this music is the highly calculated product of an exceptional vision.
That vision, however, remains fairly mysterious. “Ex Nhilio Nihil Fit” begins with an accented man declaring, “We’re not gonna avoid complexity… we all accept that it’s not clear,” which seems as much a mission statement for the project as a signal for the jacking intensity about to ensue on the track. One of the most pronounced facets of Chasing Voices is a real concern for sound design: the highs are extremely crisp, and the persistently jagged synth stabs, which recall so much mid-90’s techno, seem pushed to their absolute limit, underscoring the track with a violent hum. In this, it recalls the nihilistic electronics of No Fun or Hospital Productions as much as it does the throwback sounds and sputtering percussion of a producer like Redshape. In the end, it’s a reconstruction of old tropes rather than a rehash of them, trading all of rave techno’s hedonism for the disquieting miasma of the machines that created it, now reduced to their most rugged essence.
