Brokntoys レコード& CD

Review: Downtempo dystopi-techno from London's brokntoys, who've been going since 2013. The six tracks contained on this EP by Exhausted Modern scour every depth of the frequency spectrum, producing a cosmic affair that challenges our presumptions about cause-and-effect itself (hence the title 'Notions Of Causality', perhaps). For example, 'Raised From Awareness' is a trans-perceptive chugger which cycles through phasey dubby drums and weird paradigmatic zones, while 'Noosphere' brings atmospherics to the abstract, sonically describing the biospheric plane of human reason.

Review: After a smattering of release in the latter stages of the last decade, David Koch revives his Shokh alias for this engrossing 12" on the ever-trusty brokntoys. The label is a natural home for Koch's scuffed and evocative strain of electronica, where the crunch of lo-fi electro serves as a vessel for strung-out synthesis that couldn't care less about the dancefloor. There's space for stripped down beat tracks, as on the mechanised 'Front Two' and purring 'Kolovento', but this is machine music as a mode of expression for your darkest dystopian fantasies. Sink into closing track 'Voyage Voyage' and you'll hear an orchestra of decaying circuits and cranky filters spelling out your deepest future shock fantasies.