14/05/2024
DEFRAG - "LOST SKIES" EP. review at Vox Empirea - dark reviews
The complete biography-discography of the New York solo act Defrag and all the details regarding the two previous chapters of his trilogy divided into three EP's of the "Lost Worlds" series, are available in the extensively detailed reviews posted on Vox Empirea, respectively: "Lost Lands " ( 2023 / H***n Records ) reviewed in date November 22, 2023 and the subsequent "Lost Seas" ( 2024 / H***n Records ) reviewed in date January 25, 2024 .
The new Extended Play "Lost Skies" ( 2024 / H***n Records ) constitutes the final act of the Sci-Fi sonic adventure tale contained in the fifth longplay "Lost Worlds" ( 2023 / H***n Records ) created by Jeff Dodson, who through his alias Defrag illustrates in a musically imaginative way scenes of a hypothetical World in progressive ruin and of a primordial civilization forced to wander across the wastelands of biomes during this devastating Apocalypse.
This last act of the triptych is thematically focused above all on the figure of the celestial creatures - perhaps angels, or obscure entities - who caused the catastrophic anathema that fell on that Planet, definitively consolidating the image of the 'World in progressive disintegration'.
This is how Defrag conceptually describes "Lost Skies":
"The whole trilogy is really a loose concept of falling apart. In it's story form it's about this civilization being invaded by some unknowable thing and their world falling apart literally. The titles refer to them as angels through the eyes of these imaginary people, but I always imagined them as something more abstract and terrifying".
Like the two previous chapters of the saga and coherently with Defrag's typical compositional style, the sound-system of the eight tracks of "Lost Skies" is characterized by advanced, sophisticated technological processing, mainly instrumental of laptops, rare sampled spoken words, drum-machine, sequencer and synths that incorporate the intricate 'braindance' intellectualism of IDM, the atmospheric suggestions of Ambient, the syncopated rhythmic fractures of Breakcore, the daring experimentalism of the most radical Electro, plus the percussive asymmetries of Dubstep, all this enriched by a succession of futuristic , surreal melodies and electronic effects. Vocality is almost totally absent, with the exception of rarefied 'android-oriented' sampled sections that are sometimes inserted between the music, while the drumming - central element of the release - varies from uptempo frenzies to midtempo and downtempo bpm's: in each track, the configuration of percussiveness is broken down into twisted, pulsing, non-linear and hyper-sequenced subdivisions which fragment the music paths, dominating the fascinating abstraction of the structures and contributing with its fundamental function to making them penetrating, vivid, expressive.
This is how Defrag musically describes "Lost Skies":
"Lost Skies" continues the trend of the releases continuing to be more abstract and more fragmented. Journey to an end, as characterized by the final track of the release slowly deconstructing to just noise and tone. "Lost Skies" is a mash up of percussive and controlled noise to create the final chapter of rhythm and melody. Where "Lost Lands" is most influenced by melody, "Lost Seas" is the rhythmic release, and "Lost Skies" is the abstract noise chapter".
By definitively summarizing the concepts that distinguish and connect the three paragraphs on EP's generated by the "Lost Worlds" album-matrix, we can expose them in the following order:
"Lost Lands", initially depicts the post-apocalyptic period of planetary desolation and a primordial humanity forced to move like automatons in the biosphere - a condition interpreted through highly aggressive sounds - followed by a second scenario, that of "Lost Seas", in in which the surviving civilization is shocked by a terrible aquatic cataclysm - expressed through acoustics violently pushed to the limit - until the final act represented by "Lost Skies", within which one perceives a comforting sensation of hope that sometimes goes beyond persistence of the looming, arcane aura of threat that gravitates above the sound: the Sky is populated by otherworldly figures who bring salvation and comfort to the surviving humans, leaving open the enigmatic question that asks unanswered if these entities are the same ones that unleashed the Apocalypse struck on the planet - a situation constructed musically through a depressed and basically shadowy melodicism, with rarefied glimmers of brightness - .
Tracklist:
"Moth" > The trails of electronic effects of the intro are joined by the bombastic impulses of midtempo drumming and the beats of the sequencer - the latter subsequently highlighted through systematic cycles of minimal frequencies - succeeded by an intense interlude of enchanted pads and the return of the fractured pecussivity in mode downtempo-midtempo, adorned with expansions of electronic noises.
"To The Flame" > Sediments of micro-fragmented impulses move uncoordinatedly between the inconsistent opacity of echoes and blocks of mysterious noise, until reaching a more defined midtempo percussive line, overlooked by abstract reverberated flashes of keyboards and irregular scores of sequenced modulations.
"Melody 4" > Snappy, convulsively uptempo percussiveness, 'free form' progressions of sequenced particles, metallic pads and telegraphic sections of sampled spoken words, in a set of accelerated, complex and surreal synthetic sounds, crossed by light and darkness.
"Fill The Lung" > A scale of suffocated pads open the track, joining the disjointed and fractured scheme of the uptempo drumming and the punctuations of the sequencing that follow the beats in parallel, all of this in an unbridled, multistratified, elusive boil of electronic effervescences.
"Stop The Heart" > A prolonged line of alternately dark and luminescent metal pads extends throughout the duration of the track, intersecting the rough, segmented ripples of the midtempo rhythmic machine and the liquid patterns of the sequencing, to form a beating sound that recalls the first phases of rekindling a complex mechanism that has been stopped since time immemorial.
"Rankin Decay" > The drum machine generates an asymmetrical concatenation of low-distorted midtempo pulses that combine with the murky, disorienting tumult of sequenced signals, with jets of processed noise and with the depressed harmonies of the keyboard.
"I've Arrived" > Rhythmically creaking noise, hyper-saturated bass-lines, irregular flows of sequenced matter, heavy touches of reverbered synth and sonic twists, create a highly atmospheric and shadowy context.
"They're Not Angels" > The sequencing propagates a fast succession of micro-beats that fluctuate among a first section composed of vaporous keyboard mists, sonar-pings and reverberated-staccato piano notes, until the arrival of the second act of the song, in which the sound is progressively deconstructed and finally dissolved into an essential, defragmented and pulverized tampering with the previous sonances, now transfigured in the form of a line of modulations and interferences that seem to come from an infinitely distant dimension, as if they were heard during a deep REM phase.
Conclusions:
Defrag is the designer of a sonically 'interactive' masterpiece, a trilogy characterized by high technology, numerical soundscapes, cerebrality and a sort of 'harmonious void', yet at the same time so psychically and physically penetrating, intelligible, capable of transforming purely material substance of sound in moving images and scenarios, relating to the sensoriality of an audience of musically advanced listeners. Like the two previous EP's, "Lost Skies" represents a recording event of extraordinary proportions in the ultra-transversal electronic scene, rising above similar productions by having expanded the sonic processes into something alive, functional and at the same time fascinatingly imaginary. Understanding and awareness this music and its adventurous concepts is a privilege for mental travellers, who in turn will become the protagonists of a long journey through the apocalyptic vastness of the "Lost Lands", shipwrecked and survivors from the aquatic fury of "Lost Seas", contemplators with their gaze turned towards the infinite - in a conflict of apprehension and hope - of the evanescent creatures that observe them from the heights of the "Lost Skies". What is defined as an unforgettable trip.
