Aside from the noisy (“Mirror”) and numb (“Aokigahara”) bookends that signal its battery-ram beginnings and valley-dredging denouement, Sigha’s debut album feels like a night that’ll never end. It's a one-way trip down a tunnel full of tectonic techno. It’s never exhausting, though; thanks to brief ambient breaks like “Suspension” and “Delicate” and the pulse-flattening outro of “She Kills in Ecstasy,” Living with Ghosts balances its pressure-cooked peaks (“Translate” builds and builds until it’s about to explode) with enough peaceful lulls to keep Sigha’s blackhole beats from blurring. Hi-fi, hypnotic, and oppressively heavy, his metallic hooks create a wormhole worth exploring, so long as you don’t mind keeping up with a revolving door of controlled chaos for more than an hour. Absolutely essential if you’re into the darker turn that U.K. techno has taken in the past few years.
You Might Also Like
- Perc
- Scuba
- Julio Bashmore