The signals are loud and evident, when Ultradyne transmit on the assigned frequency from their interstellar refugium. Looking back to two decades in action – their tale started in 1995 with “E Coli EP” on Warp – the enigmatic producers from Detroit keep cruising in the extreme end of the electro universe with the new EP “Resurrection: Return from the Abyss”, out on their home label Pi Gao Movement.
Ultradyne have well maintained the veil of secrecy, with their identities and even the group’s composition often disputed, but it is known that Dennis Richardson and Frank de Groodt are the faces behind the masks. For me, the Pi Gao Movement’s inaugural EP “Antarctica” (1999) was the first sonic contact with the duo and their appeal has not vanished over the years, supported by the label’s policy of preferring quality over quantity.
Quite often, Ultradyne’s style is nothing else than industrial electro, born and raised in harsh conditions, but still open to occasional research lab sterility. In their passion to probe the unknown, Ultradyne are also rehabilitating the original meaning of dystopia, increasingly abused as a marketing gag of generic techno productions.
The new four-tracker offers intense mutations, starting with the monumental “Return From The Edge”, where survivors, battered and bleeding, penetrate the curtain of rusty noise and enter the area rich of grubby broken beats and succulent pads. Sounding familiar to the fans of Ekman, “V1014” explores the techno territories with a wealth of twitchy sequences and robust bass for electro’s uptempo side.
One may feel seriously depleted after “More Like You (MDK Therapy)”, a grueling exercise of dramatic synth convulsions, amplified before the five-minute mark with a vocoded voice ultimately reinforcing the curfew. A sort of audioplay is offered in “World Made Straight”, the most experimental cut where grim, sociocritical narrative is founded on hardcore hip-hop theme, and colliding with solid steel before the somber ambient outro breaks out. Beware, extremely absorbing material in sight, among the very best Ultradyne has conceived.
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