Shining Force

Third time’s a charm, or possibly an anomaly. Johannes Volk returns to Running Back for another fi ve exercises in perception, memory and dance- fl oor physics. Following Extra Dimensions and Lightweave, this third instalment fi nds Volk continuing his particular way of making machine music feel strangely human and vice versa. Shining Force starts somewhere above ground. Gliding across an unfamiliar planetary surface, optical illusions and physical anomalies slowly interfere with the senses. Unknown landscapes, peculiar vegetation, nature behaving unnaturally: techno as fi eld research. Switching From Bicycle to Spaceship does exactly what it says on the tin, more or less: trading pedal power for propulsion as a deceptively simple groove gathers speed, sheds gravity and quietly leaves the atmosphere behind. Hidden In Dark belongs to a more immediate kind of archaeology: fog, strobes, bodies and those inexplicably intense emotions that only seem to exist on a dance fl oor at the right (or wrong) hour. Back Alley Dancers turns the telescope around and looks backwards. Vocal fragments, pitched, delayed, reversed and removed from their original meaning trigger half-memories of youth, and of encountering music and culture before you quite understood what any of it meant. Familiar feelings in unfamiliar shapes. Finally, Drumatury dispenses with introspection and gets down to elementary forces. Morphing bass drums meet a Chicago jacking snare- roll massacre. Drama becomes drumaturgy. Or the other way around. Five tracks, several states of consciousness, one Johannes Volk. No protective equipment supplied.