Paradot - Albumen (2022)

The desolate landscape of Joshua Tree, CA may seem a curious dwelling for the densely unusual wasteland circuitry of Paradot, but engaging with their cracked and rusted craft, one begins to witness a rapport with the more forsaken corners of the psychedelic dreamland identifiable with Southern California. Since aligning in 2017, Emilía Turner and Jodoli have constructed a distinctively genre-bending agrimation of electronic experimentation, an audio-visual avenue that brings to mind 80’s post-industrial innovators Severed Heads, the revolutionary Warp/Rephlex landscapes of the 90’s, and the DIY glitch obsessions of Black Dice and Pan Sonic. Their self-described “maximalist” reconfiguration of found sounds, samples, and other electronic detritus yields a richly enveloping and surreal sound that they relate in more practical terms as a “cross-section of techno, noise, ambient, and pop.“ This synergistic collaboration of hardware enthusiasts and their variety of samplers, modular synths, drum machines, have generated two full-length albums (2018’s Conductor and 2019’s Vain Zanni Cave) and the upcoming long-player Albumen, all self-recorded/produced in home studio environments. Calibrating a tighter sonic architecture these past few years in both studio and live performance, Paradot advance a powerful sensory shock, one they see as “a gradual ebb and flow between dreamy ambience and high-impact noise.”

On Albumen, the duo continue to push their aural palette into areas that feel radically unknown while simultaneously evoking a certain nostalgia. While their 2018 debut Conductor focused on a more scattered, improvisatory approach they describe as “ephemeral and irreproducible,” Albumen tightens the structure and expands the diversity of sounds, tying their work closer to their live presence. Some sections evoke the pounding, minimalist thump of early 80’s hip-hop/electro giants like Whodini and Mantronix, while others moments hit at the abstruse elegance of Seefeel and Autechre. This is keeping in line with a record that fosters a more rhythmic luminosity, one which searches for a certain unfeigned innocence and curiosity. Indeed, one may look at the album’s striking artwork and see a smile drawn in sand, an evocation of the sincere joy one may find exploring new realms of eclectic sonance. Even the synthetic is created from the organic, and Paradot strive to obscure the precise distinctions and misconstructions commonly associated with experimental electronic music.