#eksploio

Eksploio by Oval

Of the two, Eksploio is more concise. Five cuts span 20 minutes of lucid, antic sound constructions. Bright pixelated melodies and brash, stomping beats inhabit these tracks; it is not so much that these compositions urge you to dance, more that they themselves do. The keyboards (or, more likely, electronic approximations of them) waver in oozy, tone-bending bars or clink like chalky high piano notes, more percussion than song. Urgency comes from the whip-back whirl of fast-syncopated rhythms; the beat steps out boldly, hooks its back foot on the melody, then slides back under the melody in a continual circling groove. You might intuit echoes of Bibio but without his warm, narrative nostalgia or John Hopkins sans the uplifted urge for gnosis. The sound itself is the thing here, not what it means or evokes or triggers.

Scis by Oval

Scis runs longer, but in much the same way. In fact, the general tone, tempo and palette is so similar that it is hard to know if the two discs were conceived separately or composed in a big batch and allotted later to two buckets. Thus while “Twirror” allows a haze of raga drone to build in one corner and “Impecco” flickers with silvery soul-ish keyboard sounds in another, the compositions run one into another at the same speed, the same impish, light-landing grace in their electro-acoustic beats and motifs. Process is key. Sounds were sourced from actual instruments, arranged in complex patterns through software, then augmented in a live playthrough, in which Popp added in other sounds and ideas on the fly. So organic, cyber and organic again layers flow into each other like sedimentary striations—the difference being that they are fluid and agile and giddy with musical fizz and pop.  

It is possible to intuit the amount of premeditation and skill that went into each track, but you don’t have to know the recipe to enjoy the dish. Both Eksploio and Scis sparkle with cerebral playfulness. They construct geometric arrangements of interlocking rhythms that lead to Escher-like contradictions, but nevertheless incite the body to move.