Irakli Kiziria has made his mark on the Berlin techno scene primarily as a promoter and resident DJ at the rave matinee Staub, but has also been active as a producer for a good year now. After his duo with yac, I/Y, broke up a good four years ago, the operator of the Intergalactic Research Institute For Sound label diversified his sound and enriched it with the facets that he had also repeatedly brought to the fore as an organiser: ambient, complex electronica, sound art, cosmic borrowings. The latter are the main thematic thread running through his debut album for Dial, which is also self-confidently titled »Major Signals«. Space and future metaphors may be paradoxically rather dated in techno, but behind them are actually very progressive ideas – because the eleven tracks are constantly in the process of (further) development, using techno only as a launch pad from which to break out into other musical realms. Starting with the first foreboding drones and circular synth figures, this album doesn’t travel the space as much as it opens it. Drops of acid are splashed through the mix, bubbly modular sounds interlock to form spirals, and even references to first and second Detroit waves are integrated into a soundscape characterised by complexity that never simply climbs one peak after the next. Combined with often broken, but always very restrained kick patterns, this results in a subdued mood that draws its momentum from the intermediate tones. »Major Signals« is a utopian-dystopian tipping game and Irakli’s futurism is not only dedicated to a blind drive for progress, but to a sonic profundity – deep listening techno, so to speak.
Major Signals
