Further Reductions - Woodwork

Even if I can’t find any apparent reasonable connection between Shawn O’Sullivan the American music producer and Shawn O'Sullivan the Toronto retired boxer, this album still kicks in like a punch and makes me feel like I’m on a boxing ring.

The first Shawn O’Sullivan. Yes, the young American music producer. He has been active lately, with some super ace releases under different aliases. If two releases on L.I.E.S. under the moniker Vapauteen, or the bloody techno EP under 400PPM, or the ones under his own name, didn’t really reached such a big variety of listeners, his new project called Further Reductions definitely got more attention and showed a more refined sound. With a first release in 2013 on Robert & Leopold record label, the duo returned with a monster 6 tracks mini album on the Minimal Wave sub-label, Cititrax.

Further Reductions is a collaboration between Shawn and Katie Rose, which started in 2008, as an outlet for their shared passion of electronic dance music. And they succeed to keep their music fresh and dance-floor pleasurable, even if it evokes high moments of dark tensions, abnormal electronic grooves releasing high portions of energy and splashing it throughout the album. It is all serious. They don’t full around. Starting with the moody low pitched ”High End Basics”, the album goes through the mysterious world of ”Woodwork” - a terrifying big doze of electro - and then subtly dives into the meditative soundscapes dawdling on the perennial vocals of Katie from the track ”Spectacle Dissolved”. The B side is the more serious one, glowing at its best, with the astonishing 100 and something BPM ”Void of Course”, a cold and murderous low techno that will fry some brains out and ”Beyond Time”, a complex hypnotic take on a more broken area of electronic percussion. ”Death to the Beat” firmly closes the album, with an impressive take on the dance floor vibe. It is and it will probably be the most played track on this short but boundless album.

Don’t miss this; highly recommended for the dedicated investigators of a new and reborn techno and electronic sound.

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