Eadonmm - Aqonis (2014)

Eadonmm has a knack for being out of place. The solo project of Osaka’s Shinya Wada emerged in 2011 during a boom period for Japanese electronic music in the city, but while his counterparts dabbled in Brainfeeder-inspired cosmic beats or maximalist dance sounds, he crafted spacious tracks focused on inducing shivers rather than getting people moving. Other producers around him performed in front of colorful geometric visuals, while Eadonmm plays in front of projections of flames. With his debut, Aqonis, he’s made a shadowy, captivating album that would have easily been lumped in with the micro genre witch house—if it hadn’t become a punch line.
Despite sharing a love of pitched vocal samples and goth-leaning visuals, Aqonis stands out because Eadonmm establishes a genuinely unsettling mood, something most of the bigger names in witch house never did. He avoids the sonic suffocation and aggression of Salem, instead leaning toward the sparse structures of Balam Acab and oOoOO. Moments of beauty emerged from the dark corners of those artists' best songs, bits that were often built from warped R&B vocals or YouTube-ripped audio. With Eadonmm, the space only hides more mysteries, each layer revealing a creepier detail nudged forward by skittering beats. He has a specific, very dark sound in mind, and maintains it throughout the album’s run time.
Wada manages this by making sure the music never settles for one loop, letting new sounds creep in whenever possible. “Oblivio Throb” pulses forward, but several vocal whines swirl about and a carnival-appropriate synth line pops up underneath, adding a woozy charm. “Gothic Anamnesis” achieves a similar vibe with rat-a-tat drum programming and water splashes, while lurching centerpiece “If You Melted” unnerves with extended, muffled dialogue and the occasional throaty whisper. These aren’t sonic jump scares, but a bunch of small details creating a larger, unsettling mood.
It's easy to overdo this sort of thing, but Eadonmm paces the album well. Several brief, drumless passages offer space between tracks, allowing for breathing room without sacrificing the ominous feel. Then there are the reminders that, for all the darkness, this project has roots in the club (Wada himself started his own party around Osaka in 2011). Shuffling numbers such as “Tide Up” and “Dim” sound like a more disorienting Holy Other, and they have enough of a bounce to offer a break from the brooding.
Wada only falters when his work comes too close to pure loop music. Ironically, “Perpetual Goes” fails to go anywhere beyond the hiccuping vocal sample at its core. He fares better on “Alder”, which is also built around a wisp of a voice, though it could've been trimmed down without surrendering any of the otherworldly atmosphere. The one time he pulls off this sort of repetition is on closer, “Post Obit”, a surging noise cut that hits harder thanks to its sudden loudness appearing after the subtler tracks. It's moments like this that showcase the overall strength of Eadonmm's work—he's a producer with an unnerving approach, one where the smallest details come together to form a larger whole that lingers.