Having made their debut on Eskimo in 2020 with the Altered States EP, French duo You Man return to the label to continue their exploration of the psyche with a new 4 track EP, As Above So Below. Where both Altered States' title and hypnotic loops were influenced by the psychedelic experiments of the 1950s, As Above So Below's title explores the occult ideas that ran rampant in fin de siècle Paris and beyond through a series of trance inducing club tracks.
"As Above So Below is an exploration of the fractal nature of reality, the patterns of self-repetition that constitute reality from the furthest reaches of the Universe right down to the nano-structures of our cells," says You Man's Tepat Huleux. "Patterns repeated ad infinitum, but still everything appears different."
"The plurality of Worlds beyond our own, and the way of traveling from one to the other through modified states of consciousness and hypnosis, is a theme that has always been very important to You Man since our first mysterious encounter," explains Giac Di Falco, who as well as producing music is a trained psychologist and hypnotherapist.
As for the music, well as you'd expect, the 4 tracks here are a heady mix but still for all the (very) high concepts behind them, they are still proven dancefloor heaters. The title track As Above So Below, draws upon the idea of self-replication, its backbone a chugging bass line and looping synth riff designed to draw the listener's gaze inwards, their reverie only broken by disco stabs and an almost incongruous breakbeat that resets our equilibrium before the track takes us deeper still. Third Eye betrays the influence of Huleux and Di Falco's misspent youth crossing the Franco-Belgium border in search of fun, it's throbbing strobe like EBM pulse not only ready to activate the titular psychic phenomenon but also provides a direct line to those all night raves in Ghent, that both inspired their musical adventures and birthed Eskimo Recordings.
Something' Higher takes us further up on this trip, an irrepressibly funky acidic bass line and percussive vocal elements lock you into a deep groove, whilst the voice of the late Stephen Hawking and the occasional angelic wash of synths carries us off into the heavens, to give us a glimpse of the universe's infinite possibilities. Closing out the EP then we have Temple of Bloom, a number that drips with sweat and harks back to Todd Terry's early warehouse ready productions with its unstoppable house beat, chopped up breakbeats, percussion that echo off into infinity and discordant industrial stabs that punctuate the track.
Having followed their Eskimo debut with acclaimed remixes for the likes of Polo & Pan, Tensnake and Local Suicide, this new EP further cements the duos growing reputation for creating deep club tracks that embrace everything from the deepest techno and warehouse rave to global sounds and disco vibes that take the listener to the very reaches of consciousness and beyond.
www.eskimorecordings.be/
23 мар 2023
