Ladies and gentlemen, put aside everything else in preparation for welcoming with great applause the amazing German tandem that is transforming our auditory experience – “Hyperflower”. Comprised of the exceptional brains of Lorenzo Setti (ATŌMI) and Irene Cavazzoni Pederzini, this exceptional pair is providing a breathtaking aesthetic combination, effortlessly merging post-human, retro-digital, and futuristic sounds with an exquisite magic that perfectly balances the alternative spirit, experimental attitude, and irresistible pop charm. Following the recent release of their awesome 13-song EP named Hyperflower on the 3rd of July, they are ready to take us through the world of the latest musical trends. Let’s talk more about it.

The song  “Fold” does not just introduce the project; rather, it explodes it into a stunning and mathematically elegant act that makes us see why we give our trust and souls to this artist. The music is a grand climax that builds up with each increasing number, which, as we know, are the divine, pure elements of mathematics and creation. This is one track that is so vividly cinematic; you almost get to see how the movie is being played out right before your very eyes as it curls up in real-time in this infinite breathing fractal vessel, where layers and layers of sound nest inside each other in the architecture of the song. With the various distorted voices coming in to count out these primes, the beat and the synths are filling up the space with sheer tour de force, building up to a point where everything is released from saturation desaturation.

Whereas the soft, breath-like exit of “Fold” quietly leaves you alone, “Tight” rudely yanks you back to reality by means of an aggressive, intensely assertive synth sequence that starts with an arrogant, unabashed air of superiority. This track is a perfect example of duality as it attempts to define, in both its precise instrumental composition and lyrical content, the fascinating concept of possession, invasion of space, intimacy and the utter impossibility of ever “touching” another person in the most real sense of the term. It is always there, that veil of air that surrounds us whenever our skin touches another person’s, functioning as an ever-present asymptote, heart-wrenching limit and tension that makes you crave the absolute. The mysterious “box” mentioned on the track can mean so many different things—the feeling of oppression inherent in codependence or, in the beautiful sense, the sacred place of peace created mentally and emotionally by a person who truly understands you. Just as soon as you think you have figured out the entire structure of the track, in the middle of the track, while keeping the core elements in a hypnotic loop, it completely transforms itself into something extremely minimalist and primitive, purely percussive.

The song “Hold” comes in like a soft, trembling sigh, speaking of a deep, painful experience of reconstructing oneself following a cataclysmic break or storm that leaves one depleted. This is a very exhausted self which needs to piece itself back together in order to protect itself from the darkness and remain in the safe comfort of its own arms. While there is definitely pain present in every note, there is also the sense of profound, quiet comfort in being this way. Musically, the track is brilliantly off-kilter, consistently changing the rhythmic grid in which its lyrics and melody ghost around in the dark room. The song is a hypnotizing mantra, based on a repetitive meditative cycle of the very same words and main melody, somehow creating completely new sound and emotional spaces from the same material. The way these components come closer to each other or move further away thanks to magnificent dynamics takes the listener back and forth from extremely intimate involvement into great dispersion effortlessly. And because of its deceiving simplicity, it becomes one of the most poetically masterful works of the whole album.

Entering into the fragile and breath-taking silence of “Hyperflower” — one could say this is the most vulnerable and radically minimalist song from the whole album — is comparable to entering some sacred place where even an excessive breath may break the spell. Deliberate sparseness and absence of anything extraneous create the atmosphere for the beautifully distorted and nostalgic piano, which reminds one of the shadow of the memories that one hasn’t realized yet. The track tells about the terrifying and dizzying experience of falling in love in the form of being trapped and shows how an all-encompassing feeling opens up the way into new emotional worlds but ties one to another human with a rope of love which can be either tight or loose. Even the title itself takes us deep into the philosophical sky, taking its cue from the Platonic concept of idealism (hyper-)—that is, the ultimate, untainted ideal of a flower, of love in general, which in our tainted world of boundaries comes to us as an intangible shadow that we can never quite decipher. Conceived as a representation of the transcendent image of the lotus sitting in water, the hyperflower is so incredibly fragile that it needs to be treated with the highest respect; adhering to its fragile nature, the vocals and the piano, although highly distorted and pulled into this surreal, hyper-realm, exist alone in the track, making you gasp at their sheer vulnerability.

“Gravity” comes as a remarkable conceptual gem, being inspired divinely by the tremendous and magnificent moon of Jupiter, which in turn took its name from an ancient Greek myth about Zeus who had an all-consuming desire for the young Ganymede. This song is an amazing play of metaphor, as here the physical becomes merged with the metaphysical, with gravity symbolizing the force pulling us in, in the same way as desire pulls us towards what we desire with utmost passion. The question of choice comes to the surface in a way where we must decide if we choose to remain firmly on the tracks that we have chosen or if we choose to completely alter our course of action. Inspired by an extremely remarkable and heavy beat, this song comes as a masterpiece of the album.

“Proximity” takes distance into account both lyrically and phonetically. It continues in the form of a metaphor, in which we are in space, away from Earth, and our house is too small to even be visible from the surface of the planet. However, we can touch our home planet, Earth, by touching the glass porthole window. Although distance does exist, proximity and closeness may also be present in our thoughts and feelings. Proximity is the most intense track of the album, in which the sound explosion follows from a lengthy progression.

“HYPERLAPSE” appears as the perfect, breathtaking endpoint of the album in question, taking its name from that specific technique of time-lapse cinematography that involves moving the camera across vast spaces during frame changes to create a sped-up image of motion and continuous flow of time. Indeed, following its own name, the song in question explores the beautiful decay and corresponding emotional expansion of a repeating loop. Deeply inspired by that amazing ambient music by the likes of William Basinski and his world-famous Disintegration Loops, the song manages to capture the magical effect of time on repetition, making us feel like we are slowly but surely losing the whole of the album to the endless infinity of deep space as it fades away. It is an absolutely stunning piece of music as a conclusion to an amazing album.

“Fold (Instrumental)” continues the album in an evocative instrumental prelude in which the tension grows from an increasing series of prime numbers, which serve to create a feeling of amazement before the complexity is set in motion. It is a very visual composition that creates and adds increasing values within an infinitely fractal environment. Distorted voices and beats combine in increasing urgency as the synths and beats overflow the track, only to release into saturation-desaturation and open the door wide for what is to come.

“Tight(Instrumental )” shatters the serene atmosphere created by the previous songs suddenly with a harsh, highly aggressive synth line that emits an unashamed arrogance of sound. With the subject matter of space, boundaries, and physical struggle expressed purely through instruments, the song conveys a feeling of an intangible layer of air, either an asymptote or an irresolvable boundary between two opposing forces. At the midpoint of its cyclic structure, the song drops all its heaviest parts and becomes highly percussive.

“Hold Instrumental)” can be seen as an introspective instrumental exhale of a bruised character, encapsulating the idea of reconstructing oneself after being tired out or emotionally damaged. The rhythm structure of the piece is purposely off-beat because of the mesmerizing and cyclic recurrence of basic melodic patterns that move and change through various dynamics. They create different emotional spaces that constantly bring the listener back and forth from proximity to dispersal.

“Hyperflower (Instrumental)” on the other hand, is the most delicate piece on the album. It starts with barely a sound but is later made up of only a very distorted piano melody that is reminiscent of some sort of long-lost nostalgia. This is a track that has been stripped bare, and what results is a sort of Platonic ideal of a pristine object, a highly delicate representation of a lotus flower reflection in a distorted sonic world.

Next is “Gravity (Instrumental),” which delivers a massive celestial momentum, drawing on the concept of gravitational attraction of Jupiter’s huge moon and the heft of deep longing. Powered by a powerful beat that is very processed and pulsates with huge kinetic energy, the song turns the science of attraction and desire into a hard-hitting rhythmic landscape at the heart of the album.

The final song, “Proximity (Instrumental)” portrays the grand contradiction of distance and proximity using just sound by transitioning from a long and elaborate sonic sequence to an awe-inspiring burst of saturation. The song is created on the basis of a painfully long atmospheric build-up which culminates in a fierce, soaring synth solo that pierces the mix, capturing the essence of staring across an unbridgeable distance.

This project can only be described as an absolute masterpiece, a magnificent sound piece that combines luxurious atmospheric elements to create a complex and ever-evolving sonic canvas in which pop sensibilities play with bold electronic experiments. Every one of the songs on this record can only be called a revelation, providing an injection of fresh and avant-garde breeze in a world that sticks to tried-and-true formulas too often. If you believe my ears for even a second, my dear readers, this is your personal invitation to plunge into this EP and follow me as I hold my breath because what will come next from this genius team is going to shake the world.

Stream the “Hyperflower” EP on Bandcamp

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