Reviewed: Red Axes – ‘Red Box’ [20/20 Vision]
Trying to pin Red Axes to one corner of electronic music has always been fairly pointless. On ‘Red Box’, their first release for 20/20 Vision and the opening chapter of a planned three-EP series, Niv Arzi and Dori Sadovnik give us four more reasons not to bother. Pre-order it here.
The title track immediately feels like Red Axes operating with the barriers removed. ‘Red Box’ pulls from the skeletal electronics of bleep and bass, but its hard snares, twitching hi-hats and tape-treated details prevent it becoming an exercise in revivalism. There is something deliberately unruly about it, with sounds appearing to bounce around the arrangement rather than settle neatly into place.
‘Eko’ heads somewhere deeper. Its early Warp influence is more apparent, but an insistent ‘fear to change’ vocal gives the track a strangely human centre. Against the colder electronics surrounding it, that repeated message becomes increasingly hypnotic.
20/20 Vision co-founder Random Factor takes the title track apart for his remix rather than simply adding weight to it. More space appears between the original elements, allowing melancholic synth lines to drift through a considerably more restrained version. It is recognisably ‘Red Box’, but viewed from an entirely different angle.
Then comes ‘FTS’, arguably the EP’s biggest curveball. Granulated vocals collide with chopped breaks and an unexpectedly catchy electro-pop motif, bringing some immediacy to a record otherwise comfortable operating in stranger territory.
What makes ‘Red Box’ interesting is that none of these references feel particularly reverential. Bleep, early Warp electronics, electro, breaks and pop are treated as raw materials rather than destinations.
As the opening instalment of three Red Axes records for 20/20 Vision, that makes for a promising starting point. If this is the duo establishing the parameters of the series, they have deliberately left themselves plenty of room to get weirder.
