- Sheela Rahman's second EP of the year is also the first release on her own label, Gyrocyre. A gyrocyre, as she helpfully explains, is a creature that manifests itself "when people hold built-up psychic tensions under the skin [and] the energy gestates in a womb-like growth until it's ready to burst through the flesh." If the backstory doesn't tip you off that this label will house some pretty dark fare, then the track names on its inaugural EP will. ("Skin Hammer" and "Manmeat PCP" could be titles from Venetian Snares' cartoonishly aggressive era.) Show Yourself is largely tooled for club use, specifically the scariest clubs imaginable.
"Psychoplasmic Spawn" was clearly written to represent Gyrocyre's namesake, and it steals the show among an impressive quartet of tracks. Its febrile pulse eventually ruptures, as a roaring, fleshy coil of bass, machine-gun percussion and far-off screams cascade out into the open. "Skin Hammer" is the record's straight-ahead, ultra-murky techno banger, while the title track pairs swarms of keys and bass with lava-flow atmospherics. "Manmeat PCP" buries its percussive whirr and zig-zagging machine scrapes for an immersive closer. Xosar has taken us to these kinds of dank depths before—Andrew Ryce used the phrase "techno dungeon nightmare" in his review of her debut album—but if Show Yourself is any indication, there's still plenty of life in the formula.
TracklistA1 Psychoplasmic Spawn
A2 Skin Hammer
B1 Show Yourself
B2 Manmeat PCP