I’ll admit, I got into techno music fairly late into life. The extended song durations, minimal presence of lyrics, and the absence of a clear cut drop or chorus is bound to make the genre a slightly more acquired taste. That being said, once you start to enjoy techno, it is very hard to stop. For me personally, the subgenres within that I’ve always been the most infatuated with are the more down tempo, minimal, and relaxing tracks. On the ‘City State EP’, these sounds and energies are brought to life magically by Brussels based artist Someguy.
Dance rhythms feature throughout this EP, but ‘City State’ is so much more than just a standard dance record. Jumping between a hypnotizing vocal sample and adding snippets of failed Zoom Meeting audio, the titular track becomes the perfect reflection of the claustrophobia that was 2020. Someguy is the alter ego of Gijs Ramboer, who spent the best part of two decades working as a political journalist for Belgian’s national public broadcaster. But Ramboer’s first love and passion has always remained music. Now operating as a dj, a producer, and even a record label owner, his style of down tempo minimal techno is slowly raising heads to take notice.
Every track on the album flows with a similar vibe, maintaining a sort of mellow and laid back tempo while still sprinkling a ton of little experimental oddities to add that extra sparkle. Both versions of City State are definitive standouts that any techno fan will immediately fall in love with. But Sir Davos is no slouch either, in fact it’s probably my favourite moment on the 4 track EP. The progression on this track starts early, making you already start bopping along to it from the first couple of seconds alone.
Despite techno functioning quite amazingly as background music, especially so the more minimal kind, it’s really wasted there. An EP like this demands to be heard live, to be experienced alongside hundreds of others each being completely held by the trance that Someguy bestows onto his audience. For a debut techno EP, City State is remarkably coherent, concise, and captivating. Don’t miss out.
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