seven

we @"seven" are lucky enough to have almost complete back catalogue of somatic responses material dating to early acid/speedcore years. there were hits & misses, with my favorite material being dark techstep of "circumflex". starting with "augmented lines" healey brothers began moving away from speed and aggression of early days, leaning towards an eclectic, polished, complex mix of broken breakbeats, strings and heavily layered percussion textures, existing somewhere in the space between drum&bass and heavy abrasive idm. this direction was somewhat unsteady on "accidental happiness", but on "dying language" it seems to finally shape up.

this time around the sound has a lot more complex, "mechanical" feel, at the same time retaining some of the emotional drive that seemed to be absent from similar stylistic efforts before (definitely a welcome improvement). one would not find it instantly addictive, like their earlier releases - it is a "listening" album that would need some time and attention to get into to be able to appreciate all the intricacies and details. perhaps where it is different from previous albums, is the balance finally achieved between complexity and overall feel and flow of the music, it is finally balanced, it finally allows all the versatility to shine through.

the album has a strong rhythmic feel, as expected from somatics. in general it is a lot slower, the tracks seem to be developing among endlessly changing, mutating, morphing layers of percussion with keys and strings providing a unifying feel for this rich chaos of crisp beats, breaks, bubbling, swirling noises, abrasive industrial sounds, and background atmospheric washes. it is not overbearing like many annoyingly splintery, bouncy idm projects - somatics has a strong percussion base that adds structure and depth, certain substance, this superior structure that makes all the difference in the world. this almost chaotic, at the first glance, mass of sound turns out to have a perfect flow and balance that immediately sets it apart from those that simply tinker around with noises, piling up complex yet utterly empty breakbeat/idm collages.

it is hard to put this album in context of other music genres, if you ever felt that breakcore/drum&bass was too dirty, too muddied, too obsessed with speed, this is your answer - clean, polished, refined sound that still has strong breakbeat foundation and yet offers so much more. if you ever felt that idm was too light, that its complexity was without any substance, that it was too confined within its own cliches and boundaries of the genre - "dying language" would be your answer once again.

the more I listen to this album the more it grows on me - complex, layered sonic treat, full of surprises. each track flows seamlessly, not overbearing you with complexity, opening up the closer you listen to it. i cannot really name anyone else that comes close to type of sound with this perfection. if this is new somatics direction, I can only welcome it and impatiently expect more.