Chevel - Always Yours (2018)

Mumdance and Logos’ Different Circles label deliver their first ever artist album with this deadly, stylized full length from Dario Tronchin aka Chevel, floating in weightless space somewhere between Lee Gamble, Logos, Actress, Aphex Twin and Alva Noto.

Paradoxically the longest and somehow most minimalistic release on Different Circles to date, Always Yours expresses its ideas in succinct yet expansive terms, rendering precisely tooled rhythms and technoid motifs in acres of suspenseful emulated space in a way that connects the brutally efficient dynamic of late ‘90s tech-step with a Raster Noton-like appreciation of pointillist reduction.

In that imagined space Chevel executes a demanding routine full of intricate, rigid steps. From the ambient airlock of One Evening In July he pulls off the aerobic mid-air rolige of The Call, which comes off like a syncopated Sleeparchive workout, before twysting into the knotted quasi-step of Bullet – somehow recalling the brilliance of Aphex Twins Wheeze Mix of Ventolin, before stepping into hyperspace on Arp 2600.

Another ambient interlude Warming Bath returns the LP to balmier states, before the jagged pulse of Data Recovery pulls back into the dance like a virulent Alva Noto piece, and Dem Drums swerves to the rave’s darker side. Ultimately, the lushly self-explanatory Underwater and Always Yours keep the LP hovering around the edge of ecstasy and the abyss with a grasp of heady, day-after feelings known to ravers the world over.