Age Coin - Performance

Pitchfork 63

Though Age Coin produces industrial techno, the Copenhagen duo isn’t quite of the club. Kristian Emdal and Simon Formann were both members of the now-defunct post-punk band Lower, and their proximity to punk and noise is tangible on Performance, their second full-length, which echoes the intense, bleak temperaments of the bands who have come to define that scene. While the release’s best moments are intricate and beat-driven, its dominant mode seems located more in its interludes of thinly-built, staticky unease. Taken as a whole, these stops and starts can feel less intentionally unsteady and more flat-out inconsistent.

In terms of cultivating a mood, Performance starts on a high note. Opener “Esprit”’s rumbling bass crawls into focus, low-end slowly receding to highlight a single tinny beat. It’s dread-inducing, but also engaging and concise. The lead single “Raptor,” far and away the release’s standout track, follows in this vein: its staccato rhythm is tempered with broad, wavering strokes of melody, creating a rare sense of breathing room. It’s reminiscent of textured, Modern Love-style ambient techno, like a softer-edged Demdike Stare.

Elsewhere, things turn more abstract, and more claustrophobic. “Damp”’s horror-film textures ruminate for a few minutes before opening into cold, insistent percussion, never quite boiling over into true noise. “Protein” is similarly soaked in chilling atmospherics, structured around an anxious, fragmentary jungle beat. In a jarring change of pace, “Domestic I” and “Domestic II” dispense with beats altogether, instead overlaying a persistent buzz and clatter with mournful instrumentation: on “I,” a cello met with whining harmonies, and on “II,” a pretty, rickety piano solo. They’re not unattractive compositions, but for the time they take up on this otherwise fairly brief release, these interludes don’t feel particularly well-integrated or useful.

Moments of Performance offer welcome glimpses of something more complex than their once-stated mission to evoke “feeling really low in a corner of the club.” “Raptor” gives a particularly danceable example of this forward movement, but more fearsome moments like closer “Headron” are also promising. At their best, Age Coin synthesize the ambient and industrial mood-building of their past and concurrent projects with the physicality of techno, inducing anxiety through the occasional application of a frenetic texture. A more exciting approach might dispense with the instrumental experiments and embrace this path full-on.