9/10
Don’t let the uninspired title fool you, Nascain’s ‘Double Album’ is a serious piece of work. A 20-track digital only release that has spent 3 years in the making – rife with ups and downs with tempos spanning from 80 to 180bpm.
I found this album browsing Reddit for more obscure Aphex Twin releases and stumbled across a post featuring artists who have taken inspiration from Richard David James. From the get-go, ‘Mongrel’ nails the acid-IDM feel perfectly, with its relentless opening bassline and breakbeat features. In true AFX fashion the heavy-hitting, evolving beat becomes intertwined with euphoric pads that set the tone for the LP.
‘Ya Blew It!’ and ‘Chippy’ follow in a similar fashion, however ‘Moo Moo Day’ veers off on a different tangent entirely. Sitting securely at a round 100bpm, this is the sort of downtempo, breaksy lullaby I imagine you’d use to soundtrack almost anything to give it a happy feel: a nostalgic time-lapse of a child growing up, a dormant, starry night around a campfire with the family or even a shaky phone camera video of you with your mate in the back of an ambulance, your mate that didn’t comprehend why he couldn’t do all the gak in one sitting. The song just exudes happiness.
The bassline at the core of ‘Gertrude’ is just begging to be heard on a Funktion One system. Mixed in with vocals that I can’t quite understand and the constantly shifting pace, between syncopated drums and beat-less pad symphonies; this tune really makes a for a complete track. I’m still undecided on whether or not ‘GreatTimes.130’ is sampling Aphex Twin ‘Windowlicker’, but I am certain this one does what it says on the tin, I wholly enjoyed myself.
‘Make A Troll’, ‘Tal.Geno.Breaks’ and ‘Monkey Fucked Up’ are the tracks that really got me hyped on this album though, providing much faster riddims and reaching the junglist-IDM zone isn’t something I’ve seen executed well often, but Nascain shows you how to really tie your laces here. Moving back and forth between 100% murder and half-time effortlessly, introducing new elements as though they were selected by a machine learning robot set to dethrone anyone in their way. ‘Monkey Fucked Up’ in particular seemed reminiscent of a mutant hybrid of AFX and Iglooghost, as well as being the fastest track on the LP; you really can’t go wrong here.
There’s far too many good tracks here for me to do the album any justice, this isn’t just an Aphex Twin rip off – the tracks have some serious character and I’ve even had a go at making a little private mashup of ‘Bacon’ and Errorsmith’s ‘My Party’ just to get more listening time in on that specific track. I find myself torn between being mad this album is unsigned, but also pretty lucky to have this many secret weapons in my arsenal