mother
A Simple Procedure
Delusional
The spirit of queasy, late-’90s trip-hop is alive and well on mother‘s new EP for LA-based label Delusional. After a skin-prickling cascade of textural layering, the opening title track on A Simple Procedure drops into a brooding bassline hum that instantly calls to mind the nail-biting allure of Massive Attack’s “Angel”—the opening song from 1998 album Mezzanine and a true benchmark in brooding downtempo.
Fortunately, Michelle Roginsky is not in the business of facsimile rip-offs of vintage classics. The similarity between her track and Massive Attack’s might well be incidental, and on her debut release, the Brooklyn-based artist finds her own compelling language as she offsets noirish low-end with artful noise and melancholic flourishes.
Though it starts on relatively mellow terms, the A Simple Procedure EP doesn’t rest there for too long. There is a forthright drive to “Sublingual,” as diced-up vocals scatter across a thumping kick line, but the sparkly sound design speaks more to electronica than functional techno. By the time “Metamorpher” and “Angel Gossip” kick in, however, we’re in full-tilt, high-def club territory. Yet even when she tips towards peak time, Roginsky maintains a sense of delicacy and poise that keeps her sound interesting and engaging. The effects and details are supple and lithe, giving the tracks an organic quality that massages a dancefloor into action rather than pummelling it into submission.
A special mention goes out to Laenz’s hall-of-mirrors remix of “A Simple Procedure,” which extrapolates the ingredients of the original into a shimmering, psychedelic delight caught somewhere between Dozzy-esque transcendentalism and scuffed, introverted Skam Records beatdowns. A niche pairing perhaps, but it’s nonetheless welcome as a distinctive flourish at the end of a head-turning EP.
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