- Whatever happened to d'Eon? In the runup to his 2012 LP the Montreal producer was prolific, concocting a musical universe that spanned from blissy synth to blog-R&B and sweetened reboots of dance forms. Following that ungainly album, he went quiet (aside from an EP of bubblegum jungle as Kallisti). This extended EP, for Kuedo and Joe Shakespeare's Knives label, doesn't signal a return—it's a set of older recordings, dating from that busy period. But it shows that d'Eon's music still has the capacity to surprise, even several years later.
The release hinges on a novel production technique. Each track consists of a MIDI loop, which, instead of playing from start to finish, is scrubbed through erratically, backwards and forwards. Sometimes we skip speedily through the notes; sometimes we're frozen in a particular moment, a single chord or drum fill sending up a granular cloud of twitching repetitions. This machine-gun barrage of data is played by an orchestra of cheap MIDI sounds—sparkly FM synths, twangy bass guitars, rock-preset snares. It's an extraordinary sound, somewhere between Mark Fell's angular funk and the heart-squeezing kitsch of Oneohtrix Point Never. If you squint, you can hear the familiar old d'Eon underneath.
The best tracks are weirdly tranquil in spite of the surface chaos, as on "Transparency: Part IIII," which hovers tensely in place for a couple of minutes before abruptly spilling into a new harmonic zone. Almost as good is "Foxconn I," whose clipped shouts and blue chords recall the fidgety cutups of Oneohtrix's Replica. Elsewhere, d'Eon sometimes fixates on technique over ideas: both parts of "Samsung: India Software Operations," in particular, feel like exercises. When he leaves the technique behind, though, as on R&B closer "Foxconn II," you'll be eagerly hoping for its return.
TracklistA1 Sobha: Renaissance Information Technology
A2 Transparency: Part IIII
A3 Satyam: Integrated Engineering Solution
A4 Foxconn I
B1 Samsung: India Software Operations I
B2 Samsung: India Software Operations II
B3 Infosys II
B4 Datamatics: Global Services II
B5 Foxconn II