Bleep

First things first - multiply the sides isn’t much like Powell’s other albums. Sure, the Diagonal Records co-founder has always had an experimental streak that runs concurrently with his peculiar take on techno, and those avant-garde tendencies have come to the fore on recent releases like 2017’s New Beta volumes or 2018’s Wolfgang Tillmans collaboration Spoken By The Other. However, this one goes way beyond anything he’s done before. Leave preconceptions at the door.

What we have here is a collection of micro-loops, electronic gestures and outre, faux-naif synth malfunctions. This is challenging sound-art that scurries away from one, industrial and concrete at the same moment, like a modern-day Stockhausen. On ‘difference, mosaic 2’ and ‘? difference, for nik ?’ keyboards chime away, spurting out ersatz, skew-whiff takes on fairground organs. ‘transfer, ceaseless rumble’ spins those keyboards into ever-rising drones, unsettling things that fight against a ‘ceaseless rumble’ of static.

If you squint, there are still evident parallels to previous Powell productions to be found in multiply the sides. Ghosts of his former club-oriented sound can be found in the trio of ‘into a fold’ pieces that form the centre of the record, and opener ‘transposer 2’ sometimes offers similar tap-tap rhythms. However, these are almost photo-negatives of club tracks, their beats abstracted into weird, scurrying little things that seem to actively toy with your expectations of what a Powell record might sound like.

Powell’s multiply the sides, released via the bespoke label a ƒolder, is a set of strangely fascinating musique concrete.