Madegg: Bluu Form

- Japanese producer, Kyoto based Kazumichi Komatsu or Madegg, is only a young fellow, all of nineteen, but has got out of the gate like there's no time to be wasted. Five whole releases so far in 2012, and more than a couple of them at full album length. Don't worry, this isn't some happy house producer knocking out a generic white label every five minutes, although Madegg has much more in common with house heads than I initially thought. I better get on with this review, his new label Flau just sent us his last two releases and I note we're already behind the times, his latest album, Tempera hitting the streets before we've even had time to listen to those last two! If it's as interesting as Bluu Form, I'm really keen to hear it. Bluu Form kicks off sedately enough, I'd go as far as to say that the simple, glitchy but quiet beats of Young Age verge on being boring. The album's title track, sort of, Bluu Forms, kicks it up a notch with a hiss of vinyl atmosphere and those stumbley instrumental hiphop beats that have become the signature of Flylo and his Brainfeeder posse... and just about every other noodly, downbeat producer on the planet. Madegg does it competently enough, but as the following track, Dripper, served up more of the same, even with those shattered samples of a dreamy piano melody, it was like, c'mon guy, you got anything else? He really does. The stuttering vocal samples of Pell Mell get slammed by a huge bass beat that does plenty of justice to the title, jumping along in a cluster of fearsomely syncopated thuds like an out-of-control piledriver. It's the first hint that Madegg has an interest in beats that can really move. Pell Mell drops another clue, closing out with squelching, acid synth, letting you know in no uncertain terms that it's time to dance. He never lets go of the glitch and syncopated hip hop beats though, instead sowing everything together to create some seriously hybrid, dancing freaks. The eight minutes of Awara is really just sped a sped up hiphop beat, like Madegg is trying to get through it as fast as possible; sorry buddy, it's still eight minutes. Tunginel brings on the dance proper, with a pumping house beat and what sounds like a mutated glitch impression of a mobile ringtone tinkling around on top: not as irritating as it sounds. Sugar Spot again does the sped up hip hop thing, but shifts gear to gut lurching effect halfway through into pounding hardcore, just to mess with ya. At the same time there are a number of tracks which nearly let the beats go altogether, floating off into pleasantly ambient soundscapes, like the mutated grandfather clock that is Rosette, or the drifting closer, 006. For someone who's putting out so much music, Madegg sure manages to change things up at a surprising pace. Bluu Form, once you understand the scope of it is a record with some fascinating stuff going on. I think I better go and hit up Flau for his latest, or if Madegg is staying true to form, probably his next three, I think they're going to make some good listening.

- Chris Cobcroft.