The time is more than right for this album in view of the global general situation. Vladislav Delay makes the decomposition of what we currently take for granted on »Rakka« audible with painful consistency. The title is not only Japanese for »falling«, but also phonetically close to Raqqa. The Syrian city was the capital of the IS from 2014 to 2017 and thus the scene of unimaginable cruelties. Accordingly, explosive noise outbursts characterize all the contours of this album, which despite some tricky beats is neither inviting to dance nor suitable as a background sound. Vladislav Delay, who in recent years has attracted attention more through his quiet work in ambient, dub techno and glitch or as a composer of film music, has never wanted to do justice to these banal demands anyway. Instead, for 45 minutes the busy Finn performs a merciless inversion of common genre tropes: Disembodied basses that echo out of deep cellars or bulge hollowly into the foreground, sometimes infused with veils of noise and vocals distorted beyond recognition, in the next moment rhythmically kicked to the bone with bursting kicks like in »Rakkine« or »Rampa«. The abrupt intensity with which these tracks mill through the ear is breathtaking in many moments. Nevertheless, the production sounds as calculated as the processes in a steel mill, which is operating at its maximum and gets out of control. Especially towards the end, the blast furnace in »Raatajawav« and »Rasite« seems to spew liquid pig iron, while it starts to scream in its shaft under the pressure of the titanic forces. It sounds stunningly glaring and threateningly loud – everything is energy. If you can understand this sound as something that wants to be overcome, »Rakka« confronts you with three quarters of an hour of catharsis with no way out.
Rakka
