ANNA - Galactic Highways

ANNA
Galactic Highways EP
2019
Spotify

It's funny, when you describe something as "drilling" techno they often know exactly what you mean. It's that kind of electronic where it becomes almost a challenge to listen to. How long can you stay? How long are you willing to hear the same thing over and over, mining every single inch of space for sound. It can be daunting, frustrating and challenging all at once, not something you typically want from your musical experience. However, sometimes when all the stars align, it works. On this album ANNA manages to find a great balance between drilling and melody. She doesn't force you to sit through minutes of the same thing, but she also isn't scared to go there. "Phase Two" all almost seven minutes of it, is constantly on a journey to find the next turn in the road and take you screaming with it. This album seems like it wants to get to the bottom of things and will exhaust all efforts to do so. You can imagine the low blinking lights as this plays and the true techno heads with eyes closed letting it wash over them. There is far more hopefulness on Galactic Highways thank you typically get on techno records. There seems to be a narrative here rather than just piecing sounds. It may not be easy to latch on to, but it still is there existing somewhere under the pounding drums.

The EP is only three tracks, but maybe that is a form of grace for a techno album, not taking us on an hour long journey we may not be able to pull ourselves out of. This is actually one of the first techno albums I've heard in awhile that doesn't attempt to explicitly annoy, it seems that ANNA cares more about melody than being the darkest most uncomfortable techno artist. That in itself is refreshing.

6.9 out of 10