As if secreted from the human species like a concrete hive of ‘progress’, cities – dystopian or utopian – are always present in sci-fi. They are mutually bound, like Dr Pepper and plaque.

This new album, DROKK, by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, inspired by the fictional, ‘Mega City One’, from the Judge Dredd comic series – is one part of (what I would call) an entire sub-culture of work inspired by imagined cities – insert my own album (humble brag) here – spanning the last hundred years, at the very least.

It’s got everything you expect (and what I, personally want ) from a score of a fictional future – synths, and not much else; drones, fuzz, pulses and endless bleak repetitious themes.

On first listen it immediately recounts numerous, obvious (but essential) influences. From Vangelis, Fiedel’s murky electronic score for ‘The Terminator’ (especially on ‘Clone Gunman’), to Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’, score by Morricone (‘Lawmaster/Pursuit’).

On second listen, it gets even better. From track 7 the fractious pulses temporarily calm, introducing the slightest hint of the human voice on ‘Exhale’.  ’Dome Horizon’ (which sounds like the title of some kind of Arthur C. Clarke epic) unleashes a beautiful but fleeting moment of optimism before the darkness and adrenaline sets back in to close.

LISTEN + THEN BUY  D R O K K   ON BANDCAMP OR FROM INVADA RECORDS > > > > >

Settling into the album and its trance inducing short, flowing, instrumental pieces, I found myself jarred by the surprise introduction of 80s pop vocals and garage beats in ‘Exercise 5 (September)’. That’s not to say it doesn’t retain the densely produced, dream-like aesthetic of the other tracks. But it is a seemingly odd choice to have an album that flows so beautifully otherwise interrupted with a full on song. Perhaps this is intentional, as a way of preventing the listener from settling into something that may become too familiar too soon, where the previous patterns of shifting piano chords and soft-synths have been hovering over somewhat similar territory. These are ‘Exercises’ after all. So are we to assume these are not complete works? Fragments of ideas loosely held together? I would see them as just the opposite, the album is a fully realised whole that perhaps takes a bizarre interlude as detour. They are exercises in as much as the titles suggest (Entry, School, Loss), part of life’s training, and learning more about one’s self as time passes.

Austerity Boy from Bernholz on Vimeo.

The album is called Classical Curves, and will be released in May by Night Slugs. It includes that song, ‘The Courts’,  as well as ‘The Nite Life’, which features Main Attrakionz and can be heard here.

If you like this stuff then you should also check out the Waterworx EP (2011), and in particular this track.

And finally, go here to listen to a Night Slugs mix that I made last year, that kicks off with ‘Magic Drops’… Jam City at his very best.