Mukqs - Eye Frame (2024)

When Max Allison performs as Mukqs, his fingers scamper across knobs and trigger pads, a frenzy of kinetic energy in miniature scale. Focused and intentional, these subtle motions create music that darts about like an eye in deep REM sleep, abiding by a similarly dreamlike logic of structure and narrative. Hits of drum machine and all manner of synthesizer output collide and break apart, Allison playfully tossing them around the stereo field in uncanny UFO motion. Split-second spontaneity, informed by a deep familiarity with his collected sound sources, allows for numerous sharp left turns. He records as he performs: sampler loaded, fingertips at the ready, all live with no overdubs.

Eye Frame, the new Mukqs album marking a return to Orange Milk, is an hour-long subversion of ambient music tropes, complicating its sublime drift with ambiguity and volatility. Often the listener is given the impression of endless sonic space only for sounds to appear at hyper-close range, something jittering next to the ear and just out of sight. Soft pads of synthesizer swell and sigh, but they never settle. On “Megabaa,” a radiant arpeggiated pattern emerges, but quickly becomes interrupted by a reversed high-pitched whirring and complete audio dropouts that dance in counter-rhythm. Blissful passages seamlessly melt into the quietly unsettling, with a constant rustling at the margins. Take a long, luxurious dip, but don’t get too comfortable.
- J. Williger