interview ~ furesshu

if you aren’t familiar with furesshu‘s excellent work to date, read this review of his upcoming ep for one-to-watch label, project squaredfor a bit of background.  if you are familiar with his (roughly) berghain aligned techno sound, read on for an insight from the man himself…

furesshu – lucid / all i want on project squared

this is why i love the internet… late the other night i was scanning twitter (as i do all too often) when furesshu tweeted he’d done a new mix. i knew he was a bristol based music maker but couldn’t remember how i’d come to be following him so i checked it out. the way he so tightly laid down a selection of warehouse (read berghain, i guess) music from the murky underworlds of house and techno gripped me. an hour later and i was surfing – nay steamrolling - the ‘net to find out more like a hapless addict looking to fill his ‘pipe. enter the ripest findings of my research… this upcoming new ep on auspicious young label, project squared (i was also compelled into bothering the man known as luke standing for an interview. he kindly agreed, so watch out…)

it’s not his first release - previous efforts on this label and the excellent immerse have traversed the nether regions of techno, dub and half step freely – though it’s one which suggests furesshu (pronounced fu. rea. shu) is not settled on any one – or three - styles just yet, forging as it does house vibes with his previous techier inflections. the problem with some of the ostgut/klock/etc techno to which furesshu is closely related is – for me - that it can be too immovable… tracks are constructed as huge, imposing greyscale walls. with these tracks, though he manages to embed a sense of swing and groove into his echoing, thumping beats. they form sonic chambers rather than solid barricades and are just that bit more inviting, that bit less relentless, though retain the same bottom-end punch.

anyway, lucid is first up where grainy stabs echo to form a stormy backdrop and a vocal cry lingers in the frosty air. down below, bumping beats tumble repetitively and keeping dragging you in as the various other elements shift in and out alignment with each other drawing focus to many different points as they go: it makes for a hood-up, head-down solid groove of the sort i exactly love. ‘all i want’ is even more overtly house tinged, with a diva vocal calling out ‘iiii want’ all the way through as stormy claps, muted acid stabs and reverbing bass channels steffi and pbar as much as the more austere jackers mentioned above.

a shifted remix rounds out the package with a more hurried and urgent stomp through the dark, dusty corners of some derelict old building with only glitching hand claps and shwirling dub torrents for company, ensuring that not only is this an essential purchase, but that furesshu and project squared are essential ones to watch starting… now.