Image copyright Florian Schmitt
Boris Brejcha once said of his infamous carnival mask facade, “starting with the mask makes people go crazy. Removing it later is even better.” It’s a sentiment that could easily be applied to the artist’s music as well. Brejcha has a particular habit for dropping multiple EPs and once-off singles between album cycles. These EP’s, in retrospect, are pretty much like the mask. They’re exciting to start with, but once the albums show up to reveal Brejcha’s true face, they’ve served their purpose of being the rousing opening act. Between the high-tech grime of 2018’s Devil and the cosmic high of last year’s Space Driver lies a plethora of singles and EP’s that are perfectly effective, but only reveal a fraction of what Brejcha is capable of unleashing. Matrix, the latest EP from the German tech-house maverick, forms part of this intermediate lineage.
Matrix is Brejcha’s second EP release of 2021, behind EXIT and ahead of his upcoming sixth album Never Stop Dancing, which is due later this year. It’s a three track offering that doesn’t seem particularly concerned with anything other than starting a party. It’s typical Brejcha ‘#hightechminimal, with sawing leads and beefed up bass lines that thrum against 808’s and hi-hats. The title track opens the EP with low, warbling bass and a steady kick, with hoover-esque squalls accenting the beat here and there. Pegasus makes the most of a melodic riff and simmering buzzsaw synthesisers. But the set’s finest moment arrives in the final act of I Don’t Give A F***, an obnoxious and impish tech banger that leaps headfirst into EDM tropes and owns them in the name of a good time. The ripping, extraterrestrial synth patterns here are reminiscent both of psytrance and EDM circa-2012 in the best way, and recalls the vibe of one of Brejcha’s stronger EP offerings, Violet Pill.
Download and stream Matrix here
Musically, Matrix is certainly not Brejcha at his most original, especially considering what has preceded it. While aesthetically similar, EXIT was driven by a thematic through line that gave Brejcha’s tech-house motifs a propulsive contextual purpose. This year’s earlier single House Music featuring Arctic Lake was a more compelling exploration into percussion, melody and synths which morphed groovier house motifs with Brejcha’s minimal tech aesthetic. Considering that Brejcha is back on the road after a recent hospitalisation derailed initial tour plans, MATRIX succeeds in the purpose of gifting the fans with something new to stomp to during one of the Venetian joker’s upcoming live spectacles.
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