DNCN - Aeon Of Qi
[Hippocamp]

Hot on the heels of his debut 12" 'Crayons', DNCN follows it up with a download-only 5 track release on netlabel Hippocamp. His minimal yet successful splicing together of house & electronica does it's job in assuring us that 2004 will be equally as fruitful.

His ever-growing catalogue of killer tracks have a habit of growing on you, benefitting from repeated listening & heavy rotation. Occasionally veering towards IDM with sporadically sliced beats & glitchy overtones, these are subtle thought provoking workouts. Stripped down & with melody taking a back seat, the focus is on the exquisite drum programming.

Opener 'Resyn' begins with a dreamy ambient synth before the various components which make up the crunchy beats are slowly introduced. Instantly bringing to mind the simple methodology of classic Chicago house & Detroit techno, this would be equally at home on a chillout compilation or part of a mix.

DNCN fabricates & fashions all these into an idiosyncratic whole, strictly and unmistakably his own. 'Maths' aims straight for the dancefloor, landing feet first with it's pounding kickdrums, cut-up female vocal samples and handclaps. A catchy yet dark and angry sub-bassline also pinpoints this one as a future classic.

Continuing in a similar vein, '30m' is tribal, beat-heavy, mechanical & vaguely industrial. Somehow it works yet more subtle ambience is faded in, it's this element which sometimes retains your attention span and lifts these tracks above simply drum machine experiments.

A CD compilation is just crying out for a release, one new years resolution DNCN won't need to bother with is to become more prolific that's for sure. On the whole, a largely class offering from one of 2003's surprise success stories.