Nick Klein Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield 2 Items

Following releases for L.I.E.S, Alter, Bank Records NYC, Viewlexx, Ascetic House and Unknown Precept, Nick Klein makes his debut appearance on iDEAL with a strong album of morose, self reflective productions that will strongly appeal if you’re into anything from Nate Young to Depeche Mode to Nine Inch Nails and Caustic Window. The album marks the end of an era for Klein, his last work recorded in the USA before a move to Europe, and feels like a kind of sad kiss-off to the city, delivered in five parts that drill into a signature style of sourest synths and machine rhythms that revel in the thrill of grinding dissociation, seething with a seat-edge tension with jolts of rawest electronic expression. The thrumming velocity that took Klein up to 2018 feels tempered and chiselled into some of his most unyielding work, offering palpably pensive nerviness to his typically bullish styles in a way that has begun to bleed into his most recent releases on Psychic Liberation and Viewlexx. ‘Tail Eating’ and the fierce traction of ‘Every Move Move For The Monitor’ are countered with keening choral voices and serotonin-depleted strings of opener ‘Choking On Ice’, while the sparing strokes of ‘Pear Brandy’ casts a long shadow of midnight blooz guitar, and bony flutes creep over the stygian flow of ’Spider In Brown Powder’ in a salty balance of his patented, dissociative dryness with more esoteric, emotive urges. It feels like an album tailor made for this moment, full of uncertainty, sadness, staring into the bleak unknown.

What happens when you arrive to a party and everyone is leaving as you are walking in? If a bass drum booms in the woods but no one is around to hear it, does it even boom at all? Can you build a mansion with playing cards? Nick Klein returns to Alter with the cryptically biographical ‘No Shortage of Rope’, his third release for the label and significantly, potentially his first full length album. Consisting of 7 tracks, ‘No Shortage of Rope’ is a consolidated collection of recordings Klein made after leaving his long-term base of NYC to become a full-time resident of Den Haag, Netherlands. Using some newfound free time post-move, Klein wanted to approach his working process in the studio a little differently to create something long form, something that felt more like an album as opposed to being built with the club music paradigm as a given. Describing his time in the studio, Klein says it was “the most hermetic studio endeavour I have ever undertaken”. It certainly seems that Klein harnessed this period of productivity to make the most of what his music could offer as ‘No Shortage of Rope’ is the man in his most pointedly pure form. As an artist Klein has followed his own path around the fringes of the contemporary American underground without much worry of where he may end up as a result. This has led the majority of his work to be best contextualised by the rough beat-music associated with artists like Beau Wanzer, Shane English or Container and the celebratory unpretentious world of noise. Opening track ‘Sitting In Glass’ sets an irreverent foundation with gratuitous chainsaw-like synth noise that sucks the air immediately out of the room. If this is a record made without the club in mind, then we’re made aware fairly quickly. The subsequent tracks are more or less Klein back at the office in beat-based terrain, but with some noticeable differences. The kicks are harder and percussive elements have been chosen and rendered with sharp detail, taking up more space and disguising how minimal these pieces are despite their bombastic delivery. The biggest surprise comes in the final track “French-Property.com”, a book-ending piece of percussion-less glacial electronics and maybe the most expansive thing Klein has made to date. Regardless of Klein’s intentions regarding the club, it couldn’t have been too far from his mind purely for the reason that ‘No Shortage of Rope’ just bangs like fuck for the most part. This is hard rhythmic electronic music built for basements and the record-boxes of adventurous DJs, just very much made on his own terms.