Fluxion: Traces (Echocord)

Anyone familiar with Fluxion or Echocord should know roughly what to expect here. Post Basic Channel dubby techno, buoyant and minimal, nothing too abrasive or sinister. I find this to be the most diverse of Fluxion’s albums I’ve heard though… his Chain Reaction Vibrant Forms material was an obvious homage to that label’s founders, and his last Echocord album Perfused was quite handsome but many tracks resided in the same vague area of deep techno. With Traces, Konstantinos Soublis appears to have more room to roam, with some tracks veering heavily into straight-up dub (“No Man Is An Island,” or the simply gorgeous “Stations”) and others much faster and crisp, like the succinct tech-house sounds of “Butiama” or “Motion 3.” There’s a nice sense of pacing from track to track, never lingering in one tempo or palette for too long as to feel redundant. The handsome bookends of the dubby “Motion 1” and more abstractly ambient “Motion 2” as intro and outro to the album help shape the musical story of Traces, one which is subtle but rewards repeat listens a little more each time.

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