On paper, 053 is the most unlikely of collaborations. A joint effort between Italian producer and DJ TSVI and London’s Loraine James? The former a student of precision, the latter a merchant of chaos. Or perhaps this partnership was inevitable. After all, both artists have been finding a space for themselves in the UK club scene by tearing the codes of club music apart. James, with her elliptical, jagged, and syncopated formulas has quickly become one of the most promising new voices in UK electronica while TSVI’s regimented, machine-like trance mutations are largely in a league of their own. Though distinct in style, it’s in approach where the two artists connect. Both agitators of convention (one rejecting form, the other obsessing over it), the meeting of these minds would always have promised something undefinable, a sort of controlled chaos. 053 is in many ways exactly that. The meeting of their styles, and their auteur-like approach to their work, results in something of an oil and water situation. But rather than molecules floating by each other, suspended in space, it’s in their urgent attempt to synthesise that 053 really works.
The tension that arises from this attempt at emulsification mostly fills 053 with syncopated abstract chaos, but also moments where they come alarmingly close to harmony. It’s most surprising of TSVI to (sort of) relinquish his militant precision, though that’s not to say he’s relinquishing himself here. His dry and disciplined drums are hard to miss. Awaiting feels like two tracks being spliced together, a gentle backdrop of piano and choral chanting (Whatever The Weather, anyone?) blisters with moments of industrial static and breakneck drum’n’bass. The entire thing is at odds with each other in a complex tango of sonic motifs, until the static fades into the drones, amalgamating and making space for Awaiting’s shrill robot aria and piano concerto to dance together. Similarly, the metallic pistons that fire across Gloom and morph into kinetic, glitchy techno evolves against glowing piano and rich, thrumming drones. It’s these sorts of juxtapositions that make the machinery of the 053 charge forward in an exhilarating fashion, never quite settling but taking you on a relentless joyride. On Observe, organ chords play out beneath racing jungle breaks, just ever so slightly off beat so that they pull you toward one dimension without separating you from the other. Eternal is an exercise in syncopation, clattering hi-hats and electronic buzzes overlapping against a heavenly vocal sample. Then it ends, seemingly. From its static ambient backbone comes the propulsive rattle of a footwork style beat, bouncing, erratic, dirty. Then those angelic vocals and ambient washes return, a meeting of dark and light.
053 is a challenging body of work, by virtue of the relentless duel (or rather, discourse) between its creators. But it’s alarmingly gorgeous; not so much a conflict but a fit of passion. It’s like a tragic love story, the magnetism between James’s and TSVI’s sounds is palpable, yet they never quite attract in a way that makes them stick. Still, the beautiful mess and ‘specific states of mind’ that result is something to behold. For James and TSVI, conflict doesn’t necessarily mean violence and even though things may not fit together, there’s value in trying to make it work.
Listen to Awaiting from 053 below.
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Follow Loraine James:
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