Innode - grain

A Closer Listen

Innode is a super trio comprised of Stefan Németh (Radian), Steven Hess (Pan American, Locrian, Cleared) and Bernhard Breuer (Tumido, Elektro Guzzi).  This is an extremely active season for these agile performers, as Pan American & Kramer’s Reverberations of Non-Stop Traffic on Redding Road and Locrian’s End Terrain were also released in the last month, and Tumido’s Tumido featuring Alex Kranabetter is set to follow in May.  Of these bands, the closest relatives are Radian and Tumido, since Innode steers away from the shoegaze screamo of the modern Locrian and the post-rock ambience of Pan American.  The highlight is precise percussion, both live and electronic, which imitates mathematics without topping into math rock.  These tracks build from loops and branch into intricate circuitry.

Elektro Guzzi’s electronic architecture can be gleaned in “Air Liquide,” which features stuttered keyboards and spliced synthetics.  The song also boasts a curious outro that sounds like fireworks under gauze, but the synths return, dominant, in the opening notes of “Circulations.” One attempts to pull these influences apart like taffy, but their bonding ingredient is too great; Innode’s music is not quite electronic, not quite krautrock, and difficult to dance to, despite its trancelike elements, due to its breakdowns and tonal shifts.  This being said, when the drums of “Circulations” return after a bridge of percussion-free drone, the reaction of concert attendees should be intense.

While the surprisingly brief (2:48) “Splitter” has been released as a single, it’s not the album’s strongest track.  That award goes to “Transmut,” which honors its title with early, subtle shifts followed by a mid-piece transformation.  At first the track takes its time, shuffling along as the static bursts grow ever more insistent.  This sonic foreshadowing is not enough to prepare the listener for the visceral assault of 2:38, when guitars, drums and feedback all attack at once.

In the wake of this explosion, the trio dives deeper into its experimental tendencies, sculpting the final piece so that it segues perfectly back into the opener.  The more sparse the music grows, the more one can see its bones, while the greater densities are often the result of layering.  The music has been looped, filtered and reassigned – in at least one case, even erased, creating a void like a phantom limb.  These aural illusions result in an album that sounds live, although it’s neither live nor programmed, but a curious amalgamation of both, a recording that started as one thing and was transmuted into another, cool and clinical, yet with the remnants of a soul.  (Richard Allen)