Kane Ikin - Modern Pressure (2016)

With the unheimlich, anxious spaces of Modern Pressure, Melbourne’s Kane Ikin navigates a nightmarish variant of electronic music to provide Type with a cold, clammy come-down from the hardcore spills of Basic Rhythm’s Raw Trax.

After half a decade spent operating as part of Solo Andata (Hefty, 12k), more recent noises from Kane Ikin have become noticeably darker, claustrophobic, and isolated; cloaked in an atmospheric pallor that draws from Carpenter-esque horror atmospheres as much as his own personal circumstances - dealing with financial difficulty and gradually selling off his gear to pay the rent.

This imposed restraint has pared the artist’s aesthetic to a more vital, impending sound: rendering a world of glancing shadows and efficient, amorphous rhythms from an ever-decreasing sonic palette; pushing himself farther into an escapist’s abyss, but using streaks of electro-acoustic light, elusive field recordings and redemptive chord structures to keep us from falling off the rope.

They’re not club tracks, but the sense of momentum is gripping, driving from the Pye Corner Audio-alike highway cruise of Partial to the truck-stop lay-by vibes of Crosstalk and the shuddering, almost Autonomic syncopation of Tap Tap Collapse, before ratcheting the tension further with the euphoric doom of Smoke Hood and resolving an opiated conclusion in Closer Closer’s creeping buzz.