Robot Koch - Hypermoment

Robot Koch
Hypermoment
2015

With this release, his first since 2011, Robot Koch is really pushing the limits of what electronic music can and should do. From the jump He really is not interested in getting you to dance despite this electronica moniker, instead he explores ideas and tries to wrap music around them. The album was inspired by an Alan Moore quote: "I've come to think that the universe is a four-dimensional site in which nothing is changing and nothing is moving. The only thing that is moving along the time axis is our consciousness. The past is still there, the future has always been here. Every moment that has existed or will ever exist is all part of this giant hyper-moment of space-time" and thus the album becomes an exploration of that. The world can be moving around you but this music and you yourself can just exist in the hypermoment Robot Koch wants to create. The record is rich with collaborations which all blend seamlessly together. Mree's vocals on "Separated" are intensely pure sounding while also carrying an emotional depth that is hard not to sink into. The sense of things spinning around you while listening to this record is one you cannot get away from.

Hypermoment by nature is quite dark sounding, don't expect drops or any fist pumping here, it leaves you not with a sense of joy but rather loneliness. The music creates some existential dread making it seem as if the world is closing in on you. It is not necessarily a bad thing though, the darkness of this record, because there is still something quite gratifying in listening to something that has no intent of creating pure enjoyment. Delhia de France who features on a couple of the tracks actually sounds quite a bit like Lana Del Rey to the point where you might have to take a look at the album notes to confirm it is not her. If I were to describe this record in one word it would be ominous. The feeling that something is coming on the horizon is the main vibe created here, and that something may not be the light at the end of the tunnel you were expecting. Hypermoment is a real interesting listen, but going back again might bring about some dark thoughts.

7 out of 10