Slikback – Attrition
Just a year after releasing his eponymous LP, prolific Kenyan producer Slikback returns for his first full-length for powerhouse label Planet Mu
Slikback continues his ever-evolving exploration of sound in Attrition, released by powerhouse Planet Mu. He is venturing further afield and coming home, delving into a scored experience of dance: history, present and future. Attrition is an immaculate vision that locates you on a dancefloor where other things happen: interruptions, brief flings, temporary rhythms all forming a ghastly, but immensely danceable mix.
There’s inspiration from DJ Lag, and Gqom more broadly, almost nasty Tech-step, which suddenly evolves into sections not dissimilar to Tim Hecker, with percussive breaks like our contemporary ZULI. The depth on display is distinct and unchallenged – there’s a richness to it all in its range of styles and sounds. You might not know how to feel. Then suddenly there’s a cinematic narrative developing like Galcher Lustwerk, with occasional plasticity like Gábor Lázár. All of this is reminiscent of others, but propelled forward into now by the immaculate production of the tracks throughout.
Attrition follows a relentless stream of releases from the Kenyan, not only an eponymous full-length this time last year, containing a wide selection of tracks from 2021-2023, but the FORZA EP; the five-track belter released last August now serves as a prototype for his evolving battleground of genres. Slikback’s output has been immaculate and frequent, and having followed the brevity of styles, dancefloors, and spaces his music could occupy, this album celebrates it all in one place, side by side, around the next corner.
The movement into working with Planet Mu seems to have created an ultimate opportunity to combine, reflect and build on the mega stream of his self-released work. Rather than trying this, trying that, we are listening to the final versions of intentional, deliberate and fully developed ideas. They’re fleshed out to their finest ends, where they exemplify his experimental spirit and ability to explore new creative freedoms.
A striking feat of this full-length is the return of dubstep-inflected LFOs fragmented into future memories. It feels at once ‘magpie’, ‘collage’ or ‘mashup’, but the precision in the combining of its modes, styles, and just ‘parts’ is seamless, easy and fluid. In Taped we’re treated to a complete curveball of LFOs in a 160bpm nightmare, as if trapped in a club in 2006 somewhere in Britain. It’s all over quickly. This is a magical release with far too much on display to communicate; it’s worth trying though.
Listen to: Sekli, Duality, Semblance of Composure