The year 2020 has been astonishingly impressive with how many disasters it's been bringing upon our planet. The pandemic was followed by the murder of an African American man, George Floyd, that caused an entire sequence of protests across the whole world. The German label Mille Plateaux is not staying away from these events. Their new release by a musician called DeRayling has a provocative title, society is ripping itself apart (binaural).
The release consists in one and only track that shares the name with the release itself. Already from the first seconds, the artist manages to create a tense audio atmosphere of monotonous electronic sounds that are somewhat reminiscent of ultrasound coupled with industrial rustling and voices. In some moments, one can hear sounds that resemble air spray and a hypnotic cyclical rhythm section. The entire track can be called hypnotic, trance-inducing, one that lacks any rules whatsoever.
At some point, the composition becomes very dance-like, dangerously approaching techno-music. And by the end, it all sounds like a traditional dance of an African tribe thanks to the percussion that can be heard. The mood of the album is also quite precisely reflected by the cover that depicts a burning building, which symbolizes chaos and a lack of control.
society is ripping itself apart (binaural) is a devolutional dance of society on the bones of the civilization. Fearsome and ruthless.
Author: Ilya Kudrin