We are back from a two-week Summer holiday and what’s waiting in our inbox? Why, it’s only news that Zoku – Zoku have blessed the unwashed masses with TWO back-to-back 7” releases from the label’s star lineup. Both cable.percussion and Serge Geyzel are well-known to the beat devotees among you, and the two do not disappoint here.
As you first dig into these two lovely 7” releases, the first thing to go is your sense of stable geometry. Not your hearing. Not your balance. Geometry.
Angles begin folding inward the moment cable.percussion’s “Citrus” starts moving. Little electronic fragments blink at the edges of the room like damaged circuitry trying to communicate through hazy fluorescent light. The beat runs hot immediately. No warm up. No polite introduction. Acid lines twist themselves into tight fluorescent ribbons while strange off-center plucks stumble through the mix with this beautifully unstable energy, like the song is pulling itself apart and rebuilding at full speed simultaneously.
Somewhere inside all of this, downward spiraling arpeggios begin collapsing through the drums in rapid succession. Suddenly the room feels monitored. Pursued. Observed by invisible cameras mounted in impossible corners. Synth leads keep materializing from nowhere. Tiny blips. Wet pads. Modulated streaks of melody smeared across the stereo field. cable.percussion treats restraint like a contagious disease.
Then the record flips and now everything is suspended in a vapour.
“Ritual” opens like condensation gathering on glass. Soft pads drift through open space while distant percussion flickers quietly underneath them, almost hesitant. Then the drums arrive and hesitation disappears completely. High speed snare edits begin slicing through the track in intricate clusters while long bass tones stretch underneath everything like steel support beams humming inside the walls.
The track refuses linear behavior; it shifts shape too often for such a label. Rhythms open holes in themselves. Textures dissolve before fully arriving. Sections emerge halfway formed, then mutate into entirely different structures moments later. Toward the end, the rhythm grows increasingly dense while the pads remain strangely delicate beneath it all; cable.percussion creates a bizarre sensation that the entire track is simultaneously accelerating and evaporating.
Another record lands on the platter.
Different pressure now, courtesy of Serge Geyzel.
“Follow Your Shadow” enters already in motion, crisp electro-style percussion snapping into place with mechanical precision before the acid synth tears straight through the center of the track like sparking, exposed wiring dragged across concrete. The groove turns physical almost immediately. Bodies start adjusting unconsciously. Feet reposition themselves. Conversations fragment into unfinished sentences.
Then a minute and a half in, the bass arrives.
Not gradually. Suddenly. And everyone smiles.
A dense crunch blooms underneath the drums and the entire soundstage widens into something massive and abrasive and deeply satisfying. The acid line keeps clawing upward while the percussion remains perfectly locked, holding the whole thing together by sheer force of rhythm. It feels less like listening to a track and more like standing inside a machine that has exceeded its intended operating temperature.
End of track. Time to flip the record again.
“Sense Of Significance” strips the structure down to impact. The drums dominate everything. Crisp hybrid-electro patterns crack against the walls with startling force while flashes of synth drift in and out around them like reflections caught in broken mirrors. The vocal sample keeps returning. Your sense of significance. Your sense of significance. Your sense of significance.
Not spoken like a question.
Spoken like a warning transmitted from somewhere underneath the floorboards. And you’d better pay heed.
The groove becomes hypnotic through repetition and sheer force rather than excess. Every element was placed with predatory precision. Serge Geyzel wastes nothing here. Nothing ornamental, and no faff. Just movement, impact, tension, release.
By the end of both records, I’m a bit sweaty and the room feels different.
Not transformed into something futuristic.
Something stranger than that.
Something overheated. Flickering. Restless.
Like the circuitry in here has started dreaming, murmuring, muttering.
Double A-Side Series 1.0 by cable.percussion and Double A-Side Series 2.0 by Serge Geyzel are both available exclusively in digital and 7″ lathe-cut formats at Zoku – Zoku
