Manuel

Gonzales Manuel

Wild Oats come through with the full debut from Detroit native Manuel Gonzales, no stranger to the label having collaborated with boss Kyle Hall under the NSNT PRJCT moniker. Gonzales has also toured as part of the live Underground Resistance ensemble so this is a producer with pedigree, this two track 12" will be a challenge to some ears however. Lead track "Harmnear" is heavily experimental in tone, so cavernous in execution you couldn't call it ocean deep as there's not an ocean with sufficient depth. The various strands of the production are treated with all manner of unsteady echo and delay, as the bristling percussive groove is intermittently disturbed by glowering slipstreams of laser driven sonics. Complementing this "Konnekt" doesn't even approach beat dynamics, the track remaining in stasis as a near blinding synth manipulation undulates with power atop a minimalist bed of sound. It's a bold move for Wild Oats to release a record like this, but at a time when so many seem happy to copy what's come before we need some boundary pushers.