Following his collaborative EP with Om Unit, titled Pressure 3D, the Italian born, London-based producer Dario Picchi, aka Soreab, presents his new album CU, which compresses techno, grime, dub and industrial into compellingly taut, musculoskeletal forms.
Short for Completely Unstable, but also pronounced See You – suggesting an acknowledgement and also a farewell, the album is characterised by pressurised jettison, where personal disquiet fuelled compelling results. With its track titles reading like a process, the record could be viewed a set of exercises from a mental health toolkit, or a series of diagrams for the liberation of wellbeing.
“There was a period where I felt a constant emotional pressure and stress across my life. That tension had nowhere to go, so it naturally began to feed into the creative process. Making CU became my way releasing all the pent-up bad energy I’d be holding onto for so long – mentally, emotionally, and physically. Letting go meant giving myself permission to feel everything, to see myself, without trying to suppress it.
Whilst everything around me was emotionally overwhelming, I found myself gravitating towards simplicity – towards stripped-back, repetitive structures that felt grounding. Working with audio loops helped me break free from emotional loops, and gave me a sense of space and control. I tried to use that repetition in a meaningful way. If the loop is going to repeat, let it do so with intention – let it stretch, shift, evolve. That became symbolic for me.” Soreab
Bursting forward with momentum like the uncoiling of a tightly wound spring, CU’s unleashed energy is captivating across 10 combinations of texture, tension and torque; each of which was recorded in just four takes, allowing unfiltered impulses to resonate with honesty.
Revving, and periodically pounding, opener CU1 is pure tensile anticipation, giving way to the steadily heating pressure cooker of CU7. The foreboding apocalypto of CU12 precedes the galloping, relentless micro techno of CU3, before the cyclical machine funk of CU13 motors persistently through red skies. CU2 comes on like a Warm Leatherette for the end-times generation, acid raindrops bounce off huge voids on CU6, and cold steel machinery clangs on CU10. Pogoing with frantic rattling intensity is CU9, before a dark storm brews across the skies of CU4 – an epic arc of build-up, and frenzied release.
Like Radical Minimalism for sound systems, discarding stress by cathartic decluttering, and stripping elements to their rawest forms, CU shows that that instability, when harnessed, can yield something elemental, and essential.
Soreab – CU
Tracklist:
1. CU1 ·
2. CU7
3. CU12
4. CU3
5. CU13
6. CU2
7. CU6
8. CU10
9. CU9
10. CU4
Photo credits: Ilaria Falli
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