“For the third and final installment of his Secrets series, Axs gives RP Midnight Secrets. Perhaps alluding to the feeling one gets after being awake for far too long, Midnight Secrets is probably the weirdest and most experimental of the three volumes (and admittedly Axs’ favorite as well). Where Rosewood established the roots of the Axs canon, and Evergreen painted vivid landscapes with that exposition, Midnight succeeds in pulling the Axs sound further forward, with obtuse synth gardens like ‘Nightshade’ (a track that could easily fit into the stark sound-art of Raster-Noton or even some of Mika Vainio’s records) and the house-inflected piano and upright bass dub of ‘Shift Anomaly’ (which recalls producers like Terre Thaemlitz and Jeff Mills). ‘Swamp Politics’ features a wobbly squarewave lead and aching pad that sort of reminds us of a dubbier version of Autechre’s Amber era, and ‘Static Space’ feels loose and shaky, as if the foundations of the rhythm itself are pulling apart as the track moves forward. Closing with the bright and spacious ‘Endloop’, Axs seems to say that even after three extensive archive releases, he still has a lot of sonic exploration to do. Sharing secrets has never felt so good, and we’re already looking forward to the next aural excursion that awaits our ears from Axs.”
Format: 8 x File, Album, MP3/320 kbps, FLAC, ALAC
Released: 17 Jan 2014
Style: Dub Techno, Deep House, Ambient
