Album of the Week: Tim Xavier, ‘Viperfish’

Album of the Week: Tim Xavier, ‘Viperfish’

2 July, 2010 | 8.11AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: album of the week, clink, tim xavier

Just what is a viperfish, exactly? Based on the evidence here, I suspect it may be one of those Chinese homeopathic remedies, like ground-up shark fin or tiger penis. What’s it good for? The Food and Drug Administration won’t confirm or deny, but double-blind test data suggests the alleviation of symptoms related to techno ennui.

You know what I’m talking about—the fatigue that even the most passionate techno fan occasionally feels when presented with yet another set of chugging 4/4 beats and pinging synthesizers, hiccupping syncopations and dry stalks of white noise. It’s the inevitable feeling that techno, for all its futurist rhetoric, has been marching in place for some time.

Of course, what good techno has on its side is craft, and Berlin’s Tim Xavier has that in spades, as his new album ‘Viperfish’ makes readily apparent.

With a decade of releases to his name—both on top-drawer labels like Cocoon Recordings and Len Faki’s Figure, as well as through his own LTD-400 imprint and his partner Camea’s Clink label—Xavier has developed an unerring instinct for what works. Not just structurally, though it’s true that his tracks unroll with a smooth, intuitive feel, but sonically, with every sound in its right place, every element as immaculately polished and positioned as the furniture in a high-end design store (except dirtier, because after all, this is techno we’re talking about). He’s developed those instincts in his engineering work for labels like Spectral Sound, Wagon Repair, Minus, Mobilee, and Bpitch Control, via his company Manmade Mastering. And on ‘Viperfish’, he brings his skills to bear on a collection of tracks that aren’t so much workmanlike as effortless.

‘Sonic Duality’

After opening with ‘Ambient Duality’, a three-minute sketch for queasy FM synths and percolating arpeggios, Xavier gets down to business with ‘Sonic Duality’. It’s a fitting title, given the way the soundfield seems to be sliced in two halves: in the foreground, there’s a tech house scrim woven of interlocking chimes, while the background opens up into a hazy expanse of interference, like CB radio transmissions run through long, narrow pipes. The groove would be compelling enough on its own, but the added dimension sucks you in.

‘Into the Light’

‘Into the Light’ is all minor-key twitch and devil’s intervals, classic techno to a “T”. But again, a swirl of processed voices lend the music the feel of speaking in tongues.

‘Eleven Eleven’

‘Eleven Eleven’ is a slab of Minus-style minimalism, almost tool-like in its simplicity, but delivered with oomph—and finesse.

‘Sequence Madness’

‘Sequence Madness’ and ‘Viperfish’ are the twin centerpieces of the album, and with good reason. ‘Sequence Madness’ sets a trim tech house groove in play before rolling out a gnarly bass sequence; dubby, unobtrusive chords quietly go about their business, crumpling like paper bags. In terms of mood, it’s a neat encapsulation of adrenaline rush and mental clarity, comfortably wired.

‘Viperfish’

‘Viperfish’, meanwhile, is all dubby clang and dogged focus, suggestive of athletes training on the Berghain stairs.

‘Urban Survival’

‘Urban Survival’, with its jaunty vocal samples, could almost be a Dirtybird record, and it’s a nice reminder that techno doesn’t always have to be dour or brawny in order to be powerful.

‘Uplift the Ghetto’

After ‘Incarnation’, another finely honed percussive tool, comes one of the record’s most absorbing tracks, ‘Uplift the Ghetto’: it pairs an overwhelming bass whomp (shades of Biosphere’s ‘Novelty Waves’) and skin-flaying ride cymbals with a jacking groove that culminates, every bar, with a handclap that seems to disappear down a hall of mirrors.

‘Ambiguity’

Xavier saves the weirdest for the last, as he should: ‘Ambiguity’ plays it cool with a high-stepping tech house groove, but it brims with unexpected and almost inexplicable colors, metallic and pastel—almost, come to think of it, like the scales on a live trout or, one could imagine, a viperfish.

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