Published by Davide Pappalardo on May 19, 2018
Sirio Gry J is the nickname of Italian techno producer Sirio Grimaldi, the mind behind Berlin based label Monolith Records and resident of Liber Null Berlin (the label/event/art project by Unhuman). Like many of his peers he moves between the boundaries of techno, mixing things up with noise, industrial and experimental music, reaching a modern take on the genre where the roots of underground electronics are revisited with a view born from a world where the lines between genres are less defined and the knowledge of obscure music is more spread thanks to internet.
He has many releases under his name, be it cassettes like Agony, a noise/industrial affair for Liber Null Berlin, EPs like dark techno 12” Human Enhancement (2016, Several Reasons Recordings) or his full length Unknown published in 2017 for his own label, a fine example of modern experimental techno. Having experienced both the London and the Berlin scene, he has a mature and all-encompassing approach to techno music, never forgetting its revolutionary and anti-establishment nature.
Now he returns with the EP Posthuman Condition, a four-track vinyl inspired by The Posthuman Manifesto of Robert Pepperell, one of the major theorists and philosophers of post-humanism. In its vision humans are not the most important things in the universe, and the concept itself of human beings is questioned, just as well as the relationship between “humans”, the machines, the reality and the universe. A concept requiring an apt kind of music, and of course Sirio Gry J delivers it by using a dystopian style with hard sounds and pounding rhythms, engulfed by synthetic tensions and abrasive elements.
The electronic welfare starts our journey with its engaging industrial march made of looping rhythms and syncopated structures. Distorted bass-lines and sampled vocals are layered upon the sounds, and soon shrilling effects and faster movements find their way in the track, reaching a hallucinating atmosphere. Antibionic resistance is a techno number with sharp and distorted sounds, pounding bass and lysergic soundscapes. Kick-drums and snares complete the thundering track, an obsessive mantra with a frantic and exhilarating crescendo empowered by riffing effects and stomping movements.
Oversynthetik gets close to rhythmic noise with its distorted drum-loops and abrasive sounds, a grim affair ready to develop in a slow-but-grinding crescendo with articulated rhythms and cathartic explosions. A factory-like atmospheres underlines the theme of the track, and it’s not hard to envision a march made of machines. At the end of the EP this episode is reworked by Welsh brothers Somatic Responses, with a remix aptly named as Caustic mix: things get even weirder and sharper, thanks to the usage of ultra-distorted industrial sounds and obsessive, shrilling effects and chaotic motifs. But, as per usual with the duo, we have hidden majestic melodies with an eerie quality. More than just a remix, it perfectly completes the original track and closes the EP with a sum of its thematic and musical elements, a sum of machine-sounds and evocative passages.
All in all, an example of techno as more than dance music. We have here a music laboratory where a specific theme with a philosophical stance is translated into a coherent music product showing the concept of post-humanism in music. Techno as forward thinking and experimenting, as playing not by the rules, but establishing your own rules. Whereas nowadays the word experimental and/or industrial techno is many times used as a disguise for common club material with just harder beats, works like this one give back to the definition its real meaning and scope: to define the present and the future with a sound reflecting our world and its evolution, or devolution.
Label: Monolith Records
Rate: 8,5