aerate - N1603 V -​-​:​[​The Future Is Now​!​!​]​:​-​-

“When you need it most in a beer…”

I gave this an initial spin a couple weeks ago on a sunny Friday arvo train trip, bright sunlight blaring through the trees like strobes syncing with the sporadic kicks, like a sunset DJ playing a Berlin rooftop. It was this series’ fifth trip around the sun after the dense and impassioned MISPLACED, every tape seemingly getting grander than the last. Six months in the making, the latest installment fits snugly in the series as it stands, but branches off to create its own unique universe obsessed with the idea of “the future.” The impeccable flow between each track derives in great part from aerate’s always-fitting vocal interludes; voices filled with ambition and calm excitement about that which is “new,” from All New Sci-Fi Fridays to New Scrubbing Bubbles (to be done with scum faster!!!) aerate seems to be enamoured with the allure of commercial advertising and its ability to be so captivating musically, much like OPN did on Replica, repurposing these excited promises of state-of-the-art products and experiences and breathing new life into them, often decades after that feeling of newness waned off. Maybe even more than MISPLACED, this tape musically exists somewhere between past present and future - every crushing kick and snare, dizzying spray of hihats and clicking metallic percs all blended with these deeply cathartic house and jungle chops that wash over you, letting you fully “relax and clear your mind.” It’s in some of the collaborations here that aerate shows off how these tracks might build beyond how I ever would’ve initially imagined them, like the swirling psychadelic beginnings of FewMoments with Mattress Hostility Radio quickly ducking the high-end in swift succession as soon as the drums enter, or the serene drones of Alignment with Osyris Israel giving way to a skipping hihat groove, all underpinned by low-end claps and crunching snares. I don’t know if this was an influence for him, but these kind of movements really remind me of mind-expanding experiences listening to deadmau5 and Above & Beyond as a kid, and that same feeling comes across here like a completely off-the-grid, truly otherworldly form of progressive house. Beyond even musically, I just love the sentiment that a tape like this gives off, in an odd embrace of nostalgia. This doesn’t seem to be embracing nostalgia by completely replicating a genre or style of a certain time, but instead taking the tone and feeling of this time and repurposing it in a different sound entirely, making it their own thing totally. aerate shares this scene with insanely talented peers that make tapes just as engaging and incredible as this, but in my opinion he’s one of the only beatmakers doing it like THIS - these fluent, punchy, dancy and thematic masterpieces that seem to reach for the stars every time and continue to grab them time and time again. I hope he achieved what he set out to do, but to my ears, the future is well and truly here with N1603 V.

KEY BEAT: Make It Happen [ft. Areyetee] - this particular moment has completely floored me with every spin, how areyetee’s spoken word house chops duck and glide with every kick, creating a totally new cadence of their own, backed by melodic synths and swirling hihats that lull you into a head knocking trance.