Time to Express

My latest IA review on Peter Van Hoesen's 'Entropic Minus Six'. A real banger.

Peter Van Hoesen had a pretty amazing 2009, but on the evidence of ‘Entropic Minus Six’, 2010 is going to be his annus mirabilis. Not only is there a Sendai project to look forward to, but also his next album ‘Entropic City’, of which the four tracks on offer here provide a tantalising glimpse.

‘Terminal’ bangs right from the get-go, and never lets up. Taking cues from the sci-fi aesthetic Redshape touched on in his ‘Dance Paradox’ LP, Van Hoesen ups the ante, delivering a genuine stomper that sounds like aliens conversing with each other in Berghain. ‘Strip It, Boost It’ is also trippy as sin, and shows its creator raising his production game. There is almost (but not quite) too much going on as the track revels in a clinical mash of frequencies. On the flip, ‘Quartz #1’ is the sonic equivalent of a car hitting a brick wall at full speed: twisted metal crumple zoning into nothing. The 12” closes with ‘Defense Against the Self’, a slightly less frenetic workout that nonetheless encapsulates Van Hoesen’s reductionist instincts, a wallop of disencumbered four-to-the-floor techno. If you’re still dusting off the cobwebs from last year, this should be just the tonic to bring you up to speed.