It seems as if Nick Edwards, sometimes known as Ekoplekz, must sleep in his studio, nestled in tangles of thick rubbery cables, lulled by blinking red-and-green LEDs. He’s released 12 albums and six EPs under that guise since 2010, while recently instating the Nunton Complekz and Ensemble Skalectrik projects, as well. The man clearly has something to say. In a way, he is an Archetypal Noise Dude, releasing reams of semi-obscure/anonymous tape sculptures and concrete hymns, festooned with grim, gritty SF dystopian wrapping. It’s mysterious, ya know, not clouded with a bunch of personality. Yr not entirely sure WHAT’s going on, and in that, it makes you want to know more.
Edwards is in love with machines. I would give one of my rotting teeth to get a look at his rig, to write down his signal chain, because it can be damn murky in here, and hard to tell what exactly the heck’s going on. You can realistically expect to hear shifting, dubby rhythm boxes, which he hand-manipulated and modifies with analog echo and delay devices, making an echoe-y dub drone that reminds me of the Stefan Betke, aka Pole‘s, deteriorating machine riddims.
Another forebear whose name springs to mind is the spirit of Bryn Jones, the dearly departed Muslimgauze, who set the gold standard for fanatical home recording, a vague and shadowy agenda, and a relentless and unwavering fascination with THE BEAT and hypnotic trance riddims. Muslimgauze’s music was easier to place, however, with Jones’ almost cartoonist fixation with the Middle East and its affairs, hardwired with a corroded drum ‘n bass ethos and then blossoming out into an anenome forest of mutant buds. Ekoplekz’s music has fewer reference points, less acceptable signifiers, so one is forced to find one’s own descriptors, ways of relating, and actually make up for one’s self if it’s for you.The thing with Ekoplekz’s music, and a whole breed of ashen producers, is that much of it is handmade, putting it in the noise realm, analog and irreproducable, related to experimental improvised musics of the 20th century. This is where the art gallery and the dancefloor come together, as a generation of folks reared on a whole continent of experimental sounds come to grips with all the potentialities and methods at our disposal, and decide for one’s self, and for once and for all, what you personally are trying to say.
By 2013, if one has an ear for electronic sounds, you have probably heard 100,00 hours of dubstep drops, soulful beat excavation, live freakout sound manipulation, glitches, drones, breakbeats and field recordings, and it can all become a homogenous wash, so perfect inside the box, so restless in its perfection. There comes a time when you hear some ineffable, anonymous transmission from the dark side, something murky and mysterious, like a message left on a cheap answering machine tape, or a note in a book for a library. It’s like a surreal YouTube clip, or a dark alley at night; yr just not entirely sure what’s going on, and it’s up to you to investigate. In a lot of ways, Nick Edwards music is the definition of Lo-Fi, seemingly going straight to tape; four-minute snippets of ineffable origins. But it is so much fun to wonder!It’s difficult to say precisely what Nick Edwards and his contemporaries are saying, exactly, (it’s like on the tip of the tongue), but their music sure seems to conjure visions. So what about Devesham Dub? What does it sound like? Difficult to surmise, to say easily. It’s 16 tracks, and was originally laid to cassette by Sex Lies Magnetic Tape in March, before quickly morphing into Ensemble Skalectrik and releasing Trainwrekz to much praises on Editions Mego. Devesham Dub could be seen as warming up for the main event, if not for the fact that most, if not all, of Nick Edward’s music is improvised, the man jamming with his machines down in his basement, and then doing some form of processing and post-production, adding further layers of degradation and grit. As such, it seems like Ekoplekz’s music may be of a whole, interchangeable, and I don’t yet possess enough information to report how he has been progressing as an artist, over the duration. I intend to find out.
But for now, I would say that most of the material on Devesham Dub consists of minimalist percussion, of the analog rhythm machine variety, run through a bevy of makeshift guitar boxes (in a real vintage dub conqueror kind of way), with some antiquated synth textures over top, but you won’t find much in the way of melody or harmony here. These are more like sci-fi dream sequences, mood music that also would work in adventurous dance clubs (if yr clientèle are cool, anyway). I am reminded of the works of the ’80s band Monoton, with very clean, precise hardware rhythms that seem to go on forever, in the endless futuristic spirit of Detroit techno. This is cyberpunk, see, this is industrial. All the Skinny Puppy kids never really went away, as Witch Haus has reminded us.The one last touchstone I will leave you with is the legendary Wolf Eyes, who have plied their brand of rustbelt horrorshow over 15 years and hundreds of releases, many of which they have released themselves on their very own Hanson Records. It seems like Nick Edwards has something similar in mind: he just wants to jam, man. He wants to make his records, and people can buy ’em if they want, but he’s too busy moving FORWARD. It seems like he is leaving behind an engrossing soundworld of CCTV and burned-out cars in a back alley, John Carpenter meets Derrick May to ward off a demon infestation. It stands at a crossroads of arthouse futurism, degraded SF, dub, techno, industrial, and improvised musicks, and finally, we meet.
Ekoplekz’s music can lead you to all kinds of good shit, to get lost in for days and weeks at a time. It’s like living in a Tarkovsky film.
Very much recommended.
-J Simpson-
