eng8 - metrica (2020)

Sergey Baranov, a native of Russia, now residing in Minsk, Belarus is known to electronics enthusiasts for the Midimode and MDMD projects. eng8 is his new hypostasis, bearing along with the change of name also a new sound. The starting points of the debut album "metrica" ​​are acid breaks and idm from the mid-nineties, as well as hardcore in the British and Dutch terms, when rave roots were strong almost in all electronic genres.

With all the abundance of references to the nineties, the sound of "metrica" ​​can not be called retrograde. Firstly, the passion for broken beats, sampled breaks, and a course on rave energy which are some of the dominant trends of the late 2010s, and eng8 fits into this story perfectly. Secondly, the semantic charge along with the old-school rhythms is shared by a modern digital sound design. When creating percussion textures, FM synthesis was actively used, which can be considered a reference to the Autechre of the "Oversteps" album times.

Another defining feature of the album is spontaneity and irregularity. Non-standard rhythmic sizes, the intricacies of sequences of different lengths, raising all kinds of crashes and errors to the rank of art, and finally the rejection of computers when creating the music and the use of the “natural scientist approach” when synthesizers and samplers live their lives to a large extent and become non-impersonal machines for the author but equal partners in music production. However, the main driving force here, of course, was the author's emotion. "metrica" ​​is a very personal album. A nervous and sometimes aggressive sound is largely a reaction to both personal and public agendas. Moving to another country, the problem of self-realization, current Russian news ranging from environmental protests in his native region to the so-called “Moscow case” — all this was somehow embodied in a musical statement.