With releases dropped far and wide for labels like Diagonal, Hypercolour, Mille Plateaux, and PAN, Kouhei Matsunaga has been an enduring fixture in many electronic worlds. As Skam reboot their Kasm 10” vinyl series after a decade, Matsunaga returns to the label for the first time since 2011 under his NHKyx alias, with an EP that is every bit as rowdy and everchanging as you’d expect from someone who has collaborated with the likes of Merzbow, Mika Vainio, and Autechre’s Sean Booth.
On Kasm 04, Matsunaga takes the signatures of dance and electronic music far into the wilderness where they can roam free. Disconnected from dancefloor structures yet not leaving behind their daredevil drive, the EP is pelted with labyrinthine turns of constantly changing parameters and effects dials gone haywire as synths unfalteringly morph and reshape at every moment. Jagged rave stabs skitter throughout ‘Filled with vacuum’, as beats hit hard, drop out, and then cut back in from an altered state pummelling harder than before.
Coming from a former architecture student, it’s fitting that these tracks have a sense of sculpture about them, as Matsunaga rotates the lurching, atmospheric forms in longform, leftfield technoid workouts. From deep dark bass throbs and rattling breaks enters ‘Same point different coordinate’, floating with an acidifying progressive electronic exploration kept in motion by beats ticking like the hyperspeed shuffles of a deck of cards. ‘Formulated Rhythm 45’ is a vortex of synth modulations set to a hypnotic heartbeat rhythm, growing more fervent, corrosive, and sirening as the waveforms expand wider and the track plunges onwards.
Skam is bringing the Kasm series back in full force with another EP of absolute belters from NHKyx.
