Strategy - Unexplained Sky Burners (2022)

Portlander Paul Dickow describes his latest Strategy slate as both a love letter to the myriad strains of breakbeat house, and “a specific attempt to grapple with iconic samples in a kind of archaeological dissection, a process of understanding by doing.” Unexplained Sky Burners spans a full hour of dubby, swinging, bass-driven bangers, gene-spliced from hyper-familiar stabs and breaks sourced across the legacy of dance music, then wrung through Dickow’s ever-evolving chain of hand-built gear. The effect is both familiar and foreign, like big room tunes distilled to their core DNA then set loose to churn eternally, equal parts heady rave purism and scientific rhythm experiment.

This is Dickow’s third outing for L.A. electronic veterans Peak Oil (following 2012’s self-titled LP and 2014’s Pressure Wassure) and serves as a suitably liquid extension of their collaboration. The title refers to an underreported aerial incident above the Willamette Valley, when a mysterious fireball soared through the atmosphere and disappeared into the light of the rising sun. The effect of this X-Files sighting on the music’s elusive energy remains to be determined.