Following a much hyped Soundcloud profile (inc. favourited tracks by AFX) Brainwaltzera turns in a stunning debut album of melancholic electronica and head-squashing acid for Film, quite surely the closest grasp to the authentic, original braindance feeling. If you have ever moved to the funky acid stuff of Luke Vibert, taken an extended holiday within the Boards of Canada, or found yourself lost in the throes of a heavy session taking Drukqs than this is THEEE record for you.
Having caused the masses of those plugged into the Film Recs axis to almost break their fingers by hitting the keys on the underground electronica forums so hard with excitement when Film seemingly, out of nowhere dropped the Aescoba EP. Brainwaltzera's debut makes good on its promises by arriving with all the nostalgic forward motion punch of a Boards Of Canada industrial metal album. Yet make no mistake, the mission here isn't to look back and pick over the past with a glazed expression and lust for a time long gone. Brainwaltzera is too busy for that, his mission is set on reshaping the present with freshly formed, yet time-proven tools. Lifting elements of what caused those before him to fully realise the vision of an alternative history of electronic music, Poly-ana continues this tradition with a striking complexity and sparkling new take on a classic theme.
While Aescoba and the Bleep favourite Analogical Force 12 were indebted to early Aphex'ian styles, the key to Poly-ana's power is the way it builds on the RDJ techno sound and translates them into new structures and symbols. At moments Brainwaltzera does borrow heavily from the Rephlex catalogue, but he also takes this in his stride as something of a jumping off point to explore ideas using a setup of technology that the first wave braindancers could have only imagined (and we are sure a lot of them did!). The ghosts of these releases float quietly in the ambient clouds and textures overhead, but the core feeling is one of exploring the newly found alien landscapes that are hidden within the electronic patch bays of analogue synthesizers portrayed on the screens of MacBook Pros.
While many take the Analord's work as influence and push out pastiche renditions that don't even come close to the original thing, artists such as Microlith (RIP), LNS, Nkisi and above all else on Poly-ana, Brainwaltzera are looking to the past as a means of learning the ropes while they are pushing ahead, locked in studios night after night, endlessly busy putting up the building blocks of the future.
