Black Hat - Impossible World (2017)

Impossible World is Black Hat's second release for the Chicago-based Hausu Mountain label, arriving three years after the bleak, harrowing Thought of Two. Since then, the Seattle-based artist's combination of deep, bass-heavy drone and polyrhythmic techno beats has only sharpened in focus. Dream Interlock, a limited cassette on Digitalis, was much brighter and more reminiscent of early IDM, and the Willow 12" EP was a bit more rhythmically straightforward, but still perhaps a bit too bent and broken for most clubs. Impossible World contains fast, busy beats and glowing melodies which seem far more optimistic than the ominous dread of his earlier works, but there's still a wistful sense of reflection here. It seems almost obligatory to compare this to Autechre (particularly the early albums and EPs), as this is highly focused music expressing abstract feelings, and it might take a few listens to decipher it. It's a bit alien, for sure, but it's not inaccessible, and it's the producer's most illuminating, wondrous work yet. Opener "Digital Playpen" is particularly lustrous, and sounds like early B12 at their most energetic. Darkness flares up into the bass eruptions of tracks like "Headband," or the chilling synth pads of "Far Gone," but it's not as all-consuming as on Thought of Two. Some of the beats are a bit smudged and contorted, especially on "Cucullu" and "Fortunate Statement," but they're still arranged into patterns which are easy to gyrate (if not necessarily dance) to. The tracks often take their time to build, with several around eight minutes each, and the longer they stretch, the deeper and more expressive they get. Impossible World is vast and labyrinthine, but no matter how deep it gets, there's always some sort of light shining.