Optimo Music Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Optimo continue their label with a new release from De Ambassade (Pascal Pinkert), following their 2019 album 'Duistre Kamers'. An ambassador for what? We don't know; we do know, though, that Pinkert's new music is frank, haunting and styled after every post-industrial trope under the sun, while retaining a clean and danceable appeal for the present. Star track 'Brand In De Straten' is a case in point, combining the sonics of EBM with what would otherwise be a drivingly urgent breakbeat structure.

Review: Optimo Music continue to dazzle with their increasing experimentation, this time welcoming Finnish producer and K-X-P frontman Kaukolampi to the fore. Exploring the concept of sound as a physical and spatial phenomenon, the LP explores Kaukolampi's idea of "the sphere": his metaphysical and/or musical analogy for being subject to an undetectable outside force, as if being manipulated by an unseen cult. Hypnotic, eerie grooves play out in a muted, time-crystalline fashion, all tracks evoking the feeling of being locked in spherical amber, unwitting.