A veteran of his home country’s most prominent music festivals, Italian new waver Furtherset has delivered a six-track mini-album long on aggressive beats and swirling, fuzzy synth lines.
Tommaso Pandolfi works out of the middle ground between club music and avant-garde electronics. You can absolutely dance to this new material. Chances are though, that’ll have to happen in the privacy of your own headphones.
His inimitable take on electronic music likely has something to do with him playing piano and bass guitar during his pre-teen years. At 13, Pandolfi’s burgeoning interest in kraut rock and glitch led him to electronics.
To Alter and Affect opens with a crushing beat and a Kraftwerk-worthy heavy breathing sample. (At least, I think that’s what it is.) “This Eternal Vanishing” builds from there, poking jabs of synthesizer at its listeners. If it’s meant to soften us up for what comes next, Pandolfi can consider track one a success.
“The Arc Of Imaginary” follows with a similar intensity before settling into a more contemplative, almost ambient vibe. Side A of the cassette release closes with “Self Unfinished,” and a fuzzbox sound most shoegazers would be proud to call their own.
Over on side B, “Ask Your Existential Core” is a majestic highlight. The sound is big big big. There’s something here for fans of both Philip Glass and Test Dept.
“Drawings Of Desire And Hate” closes out the program on an aggressive tip, not unlike track one. Fitting that an album that makes such effective use of loops would leave off in roughly the same place it starts.
Pandolfi comes to us out of the Technowagon Recordings crew.