- Matthew Dear is nothing if not a man of many talents. He traffics in lush electro-pop under his birthname, he crafts saw-toothed bangers as Audion, while as False, he strips back the acidic, four-on-the-floor bombast of Audion to reveal an undulating skeleton of surgically precise techno, a outré sound that befits its home on that bastion of all things minimal: Minus.
Both of these tracks have been caned by Hawtin, and both are featured also on the False longplayer ‘2007’ released this month. The A-side ‘Fed On Youth’ is built over a devastating rhythm that steamrolls everything it its path. The reverb-flecked chords create a palpable sense of tension, the rinsed snares snap the rhythm to attention, but that’s before Dear throws a serious curveball into the mix by coating zips of raw synth drones on top of it all. It’s a chaotic effect, to be sure, but used properly, this track is capable of grabbing the room by its neck and pulling it physically into the peak hours of the night.
On the flip, ‘Face The Rain’ is more subdued, with Dear hollowing out the beat and dousing the mix in oceanic echo. With crisp percussion and cycling, Lawrence-esque piano figures that flit about the stereofield, the track is more concerned with being hypnotic and involving than it is with melting the listener’s face. And that’s the brilliance of Matthew Dear: he knows when to take it easy on you as well as when to pull out all the stops. A wonderful twelve from a producer who only seems to get better with age.
TracklistA Fed On Youth
B Face The Rain