Germanium SIl is a new project from a Toronto artist who released Equanimity. Not much is known about the artist but the music does stand for itself. The album contains a whopping eighteen tracks but a lot of the songs are short and felt like vignettes rather than fully explored ideas.
The songs are instrumental and beat based. For the most part there’s a good amount of hip-hop inspired beats which form around different palettes of sound. There’s a good amount of variety here and it reminded me of a mix tape. The album starts with the darker and metallic “Hijacked.” You get a fat and big sounding kit that is surrounded by ghostly elements most of which felt like a matrix infused dystopian future. There are some similarities to artists like Burial. “Pretense” changes things up. It felt more organic and you get some guitar. The song reminded me of something you might hear from Beck about twenty years ago. I liked the bluesy overtones with this song. On “Catastrophe Machine” you get this siren that sounds a little like a tornado warning. It’s backed by mechanical percussion elements and funky guitars. Pads surround a lot of the song and there’s a good amount of transitions to keep the song engaging. As the album progresses I thought there were a number of highlights. One of the most emotionally resonant songs was “Dispatches from the Sober House.” The song has a sense of melancholy but it is always inviting and provides a solace. I love that combination of emotion and this song nails it. “Brooklyn Redux'' sounded like it could be used in the popular show Succession on HBO. Orchestral strings play around a heavy hip-hop beat that has a cerebral quality. “Darkroom” had a cool groove that is a bit jarring but original sounding. I loved how the time of the samples got manipulated. The most laid beat is the title track “Equanimity.” It’s got a chill feel to it, almost meditative like. “Panic Mode” had this ’80s style flavor that I wasn’t expecting while the closer “End of Something” was a cool rock based groove that could have benefited from more of a lead element. This music is in the same zeitgeist as artists like Prefuse 73 and Four Tet. I thought the music was well constructed and was a solid start. The artist certainly got my attention and I look forward to hearing more.
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