Herva: What I Feel EP (Delsin)

Hervé Corti’s four tracks on this release for Delsin walk the line between dance music and something other. The overall production sensibility is strange and murky, not in a way that sounds merely lo-fi but in a way that’s almost disorienting. The punchy kick of “Gorilla’s Machine,” paired with bleepy melodic synths and samples, feels like a dancefloor burner until intermittent blasts of noise and interference interrupt the flow. Elsewhere, “Paranoid Thinking” swirls with sound, again with its rhythm section nearly lost within the dense arrangement of samples and patterns and phrases.  "Snow and Tears,“ the last cut, is a bit more straightforward once it gains momentum, with a skittering hi-hat pattern over a deeper kick and looping spoken vocal bits. But it’s "Crocodile Tears” that is my favorite of the four, built around a tiny bass and clap combo that sounds like it’s coming through an AM radio receiver, a stark contrast to the usual crisp and deep low-end that is heard on most techno these days. It’s fascinating to me, sort of like a techno miniature, all tied together by a weird vocal sample: “So where is my dream?” “It is a continuation of reality.” “But where is my reality?” “It is at the end of your dream.” I’m unsure how these tracks would mix into a typically punchy DJ set, but the way they seem to exist between worlds (the club and headphones) resonates with me. Here’s hoping Delsin continues to push toward the outskirts of conventional dance music quality with releases such as this one.

Buy it: Delsin | Boomkat | Bleep | iTunes