Label Spotlight: Exponential Records
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 by Kyleelectronic // idm // trip-hop
Certain labels came to mind as I browsed Exponential Records: Ninja Tune, M3rck, Eastern Developments, Chocolate Industries. Started by Ernest Gonzales in 2000, aka Theory of Everything, Exponential’s aim was to be an art-and-music collaboration, having shows where art and music coincide. Every artist on this label has a unique and well-developed style, ranging with backgrounds as world-traveling DJs, graffiti artists, designers, heavy thinkers, phreakers, and family men. While the beats are what initially drew me in, I was surprisingly delighted to find an 8-bit twist that I thoroughly enjoyed, in a genre which usually entices me less than Gyromite. To bring things a step further, the same person creating the Edo track below and that 8-bit melody has also crafted an ep titled Lullaby, for his newborn baby to fall asleep to. Deep-fried and delicious! beats and melodies from Texas.
A.M. Architect – Unspoken
Theory of Everything – Taking It Back To Edo
buy this cd
The 
Kreidler has one of those sounds that teeters on the edge of being irritatingly experimental, but is pulled back by some solid acoustic instrumentation and a good sense of beat and build. Their debut, Weekend showcases an odd mix of chirps and clicks, along with some more conventional driving bass and lightly rocky drums. Some of it’s a bit Four Tet-ish, but it’s a little meaner with its melodies than the English artist, and the overall effect is something slightly darker.
Susumu Yokota has released a somewhat ridiculous thirty (ish) albums over the last fourteen years, mainly in Japan and mainly in the house/techno genre. Over here in Angloland, though, he’s best known for his ambient electronica that’s a chilling sort of blend of The K&D Sessions and the Myst soundtrack. It’s all layers of hum, echoing bells, and sparsely shaken beats, and blends dreamily into one, beautifully rich canvas of sounds. The tracks here are from his 2002 The Boy and the Tree; his other ambient albums are Sakura, Grinning Cat, and Magic Thread.
Distant echoes return with a subdued haze, in an audible maze that approaches your ear. Matthias Grübel’s voice sparingly appears to direct and translate, through his Phon°noir dialect, as songs often build, unfold, surprise and sometimes delight with a scattered, spackled, mysterious transformation of blips, glitches, instrumental and skyward noises that become waves and bursts, then disappear. He credits Leonard Cohen and Four Tet as influences; I agree.