µ-ziq
Royal Astronomy
Astralwerks

Techno has come a long way. Emerging from the pounding, melodic house that dominated the Detroit and Chicago party scenes way back when, a subsequent generation of artists (mostly British, for whatever reason) have stretched the genre in directions no one could have initially anticipated. To the short list of great intelligent electronic songsmiths should be added another name: µ-Ziq, a.k.a., Mike Paradinas.

Like other notable techno innovators, µ-Ziq has long shown a willingness to break from convention, shedding predictable loops and forms to create a sound unique in a genre full of clones and cynical mechanics bent on building the next one-hit wonder.

Much of the artist's earlier work had leaned heavily upon a delicious, pounding, complicated sort of rhythm sequence reminscent of Aphex Twin's preferred brand of percussion. Indeed, this was probably no coincidence: Aphex Twin and µ-Ziq have colloborated on a number of projects, and seem to be on pretty good terms with each other.

But Royal Astronomy is, in many parts, a strong step away from the beat-heavy creations that marked earlier albums like In Pine Effect and Lunatic Harnass; tracks like "Scaling," "The Hwicci Song" and "The Fear and Slice" have, instead, an other-worldly intelligent dance feel to them. It's a spacey, contemplative flavor that dovetails nicely with the album's title. Moreover, select tracks conjure up references to many forms of music at once. "The Hwicci Song," for example, reminds the listener of Disney-esque orchestral music played as a band of pixies enter a haunted forest, accompanied by drum loops and top-notch use of scratching and samples.

Like most of µ-Ziq's output, Royal Astronomy is hard to accurately classify. For all the smooth beauty of "The Fear" or "Scaling", tracks like "The Motorbike Track" and "Mentim" come at the listener with no illusions about their own beauty; both are harsh, confrontational and, for some listeners, unpleasant. At the same time, and in their own small way, both expand upon the answer for the question: "what is electronic music?"

The career of Mike Paradinas has long been one of the most interesting ongoing stories in the world of techno, and Royal Astronomy is a worthy new chapter. Layered, elegant and undefinable, it is a treasure trove of polished tracks from an old master.

— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)