- No, this isn't Kevin Saunderson, but Terrestreality isn't as far from Rust Belt electronics as one might presume. Innercity has been the principal outlet for the Belgian musician Draak Jagers since 2010. Jagers' sound is variable, but generally centers around a simultaneously caustic and soothing type of synthesizer drone. On recent efforts—namely his 7-inch for NNA Tapes—Jagers has attempted to merge this sound with a techno sensibility (read: beats), an idea he furthers here, albeit a bit more abstractly.
The scene throughout is reminiscent of Tarkovsky's Stalker, permeated by a kind of eerie, high-contrast, industrial calm. Even the cover, essentially a formless gray smudge, is suggestive of plumes of factory smoke. Jagers sets the scene early on with the compressed creak and muffled vocals of "Opiate Vague." While hardly a pop song, it's one of his most deliberately structured pieces to date. The track serves as a jump-off point for a series of strangulated, ethereal compositions which often resemble a score for an imaginary film, offering distended variations on particularly toxic-sounding synthtones.
Even so, Terrestreality isn't totally grim and shapeless. "Grind at Heart" begins like an extremely distorted, lo-fi take on Vangelis-style ambience, and ends up swirling around a filtered, live-drummer-insinuating pound in its final minute. "Anti-Earth" is a brief but surprisingly beautiful sketch, as Jagers gets a foggy, twinkling drone to levitate above—and then merge with—cavernous bass pulses. And "Baby Food" is a smoldering, corrosive behemoth, its pervasive rumble lending more than a hint of ominousness to the trembling, smudged synths underneath. Throughout Terrestreality, one gets the nagging feeling that these tracks have some kind of backstory. Jagers may be a lo-fi operator with a proclivity for smothering his sounds, but his imagination operates on an epic scale.
TracklistA1 The Lil Green Builders Carry On
A2 Opiate Vague
A3 Perception
A4 Pai Apnap / Pai Non
A5 Grind At Heart
B1 Anti-Earth
B2 The Fruits Have Left Your Baskets And Gone Home To Feed The Apes
B3 Morphea
B4 Overworld
B5 Cross Stone-Desert 23 Eagle-Headed And Feathered Humanoid Skeletons Head For Luna Lake
B6 Baby Food
B7 The Eschaton Is Being Reset