 |
|
Fluxion, "Vibrant Forms"
One of my favorite reissues of 2012 was Porter Ricks' Biokinetics, a maddeningly hard-to-get dub techno classic from Chain Reaction's golden age.  Unbeknownst to me, that album was apparently just the beginning of a larger project, as Type is back with yet another landmark reissue from Basic Channel's influential imprint.  While Vibrant Forms is not quite as distinctive or intermittently amazing as Biokinetics, it compensates by being consistently excellent from start to finish.
Fluxion is one of the guises of Greek producer Konstantinos Soublis, who is still fairly active on Denmark's Echocord label.  This particular compilation, however, is a collection of some of his earliest work, though not a very comprehensive one.  In fact, it only includes Fluxion's debut single (1998's Lark/Atlos) and 1999's Largo EP, though both the 1999 original and this reissue toss in a couple of short bonus tracks as well ("Lapses" and "Cyclops Machine").
Some of Fluxion's other releases from the same period are actually compiled on a second volume of Vibrant Forms, but that one remains woefully out-of-print and expensive for the time being (Chain Reaction's signature metal boxes being both collectible and amusingly prone to damaging their contents).  I certainly hope to be able to hear the rest of those songs someday to get a more complete picture of Soublis' early creative flurry, but it is easy to see why Type was so thrilled to put out this first volume by itself (they hail it as a "legendary masterpiece").  Certainly, more Fluxion would be nice, but this volume beautifully embodies the electronic music zeitgeist of the era just fine by itself: this is as archetypal as dub techno can possibly be.
Of course, the line separating "archetypal" and "faceless" is quite a blurry one, which is perhaps why Soublis' name is not as well-known as it probably should be.  Vibrant Forms is simply the sound of someone who understood dub techno on a deep and intuitive level and set about putting all of its requisite components together in exactly the right way at exactly the right time.  As a result, nearly all of these ten songs adhere to the same template: a steady 4/4 kick-drum thump, a hazy/echo-ey synth motif, a simple bass line, and constant subtle additions and subtractions to the beat.  The overall effect is like a highly precise machine creating a mesmerizing, complex rhythm that never stops evolving, but the more mechanized/inhuman aspect of Fluxion is somewhat balanced out by the woozily warm and blurry synth chords (though that endlessly repeats as well).
Normally, such incredible similarity between pieces would make for a punishingly redundant and tedious album or at least prevent me from have much of a preference for any particular song, but I do not have that problem at all with Vibrant Forms.  The reason for that is that I would be perfectly happy if any one of these songs went on for the duration of the entire album, as all of beauty lies within the details and constant small changes: shifts in cymbal patterns, pops and hisses, slight variations in the sound of the synth, etc.  While the bass drum thump rarely (if ever) changes, the overall pulse never stops changing.  Given that, the best songs often tend to be the ones that go on the longest, though my favorites (the almost indistinguishable "Largo" and "Hiatus") only clock in at around 7- or 8-minutes.  Conversely, the album's weakest songs are simply those that end too soon, like the otherwise excellent 2-minute "Lapses."
Since Konstantinosis not actually a machine, he does occasionally stray a bit from his formula from time to time.  In fact, unexpected detours start to become the norm as the album gets closer and closer to the end.  One of the more divergent examples is "Pendoulous," which incorporates a prominent bassline and replaces the standard-issue chord stabs with rippling, murky dissonance.  An even more dramatic aberration is "Influx," which completely eschews a beat in favor of surprisingly harsh and sizzle-heavy synth washes.  My favorite of Fluxion's variations, however, is the closing "Opaque," which creates a hypnotic push-pull pulse with something that sounds like treated machine-noise.
The word "masterpiece" is woefully misused and I probably would not have declared Vibrant Forms to be one just a few short years ago, but I have recently expanded my definition of brilliance to include peerless craftsmanship rather than just bold vision.  Given that, this album is at the very least a legitimate, unqualified masterpiece of its genre, as it could not possibly be more elegantly executed (or more consistent quality-wise).  If Vibrant Forms can be said to have a flaw, it is actually that it is too flawless: Soublis' skill in achieving machine-like, trance-inducing perfection left absolutely no room for any distinct personality to come through.  That seems to have been precisely the point though.
Samples:
 
