ISS004

ISS004 by Skee Mask

Skee Mask is Bryan Müller from Munich. From his bio on Ilian Tapes: “Skee Mask’s direction is mostly rolling rhythms, combined with electronic soundscapes, always forcing to create a deep vibe.” I would say that this pretty perfectly sums up the record. Super fast, punchy breakbeats totally define the sound—the music is super driving, rhythmically complex, and engaging.
Listen if you like: Aphex Twin, Burial, other Hyperdub stuff, Autechre, Special Request, breakbeat dance music/IDM in general. Iglooghost fans might dig this? Check out the last track if you’re into ambient at all, it's a really nice bite-sized cut with some cool textures.

FCC Clean (no lyrics)
Recommended tracks: 2, 3, 4 (5 is also nice but unlike the rest of the album)

1. Juug (05:36) — Super punchy. Repeats the same 2 bar rhythmic pattern for pretty much the whole song, but intensifies the timbre and mutates the samples within the pattern to create a super interesting and sort of hypnotic track.
**2. Slow Music (07:13) — Starts off with a similar punchiness to Juug, but at around 1:45 adds some really nice ambient melodic textures that sound almost off SAW 85-92 (kinda like Tha). Then just kinda grooves for a bit. Really nice track on the more ambient side of things.
*3. RZZ (06:44) — Slow intro, beat doesn’t come in until 28 seconds. When it does, it’s again a super hard-hitting breakbeat as per the rest of the album featuring some rumbling 808 type bass drums. Has a lot of melodic and rhythmic change ups throughout, unlike the first two tracks which kind of slowly morph. Gets really mellow and has a long fade-out outro with about 30 seconds to go.
*4. Play Ha (04:54) — Really cool and kinda wonky pitched tom beat. A bit more minimal but really cool rhythmic stuff going on, and the drums once again are insanely strong. Lots of space but very complex, lots of rhythmic changeups. 3:44 there’s a pretty big changeup rhythm-wise, same instruments just gets a lot more rhythmically off-kilter and variable. Kind of an odd outro of just a big snare roll with ten seconds left and is basically done with 5 seconds to go.
5. Sphere In Total (03:54) — Very ambient, no drums at all! Swirling synth textures and rumbling bass that fades in and out. Sounds like you're in a futuristic cave that’s also underwater, if that makes any sense.