Category Archives: IDM

Aleksi Perälä has been maneuvering under the radar for quite some time. The first time he got some attention from a wider audience was with his "Colundi Series". It was a tremendously big collection  of 13 Album length releases and somehow reminded of the time when Aphex Twin released his Analord Series. On the Colundi Series Aleksi Perälä was especially hyped by his intense approach to microtonal sequence composing. But it covered a wide range of sounds from Ambient to IDM to Oldschool Techno.

Simulation is Perälä's second release for the Clone Basement Series. And to me is special because it widens Peräläs horizon of sounds even more. First and foremost it's dynamics. As it is an energetic album on an emotional level it is by no means a result of the still ongoing "Loudness War". There is so much air between all these sounds that it feels like a relief that let's you inhale very deeply. In this sense it really feels like a ruminant Album. And Perälä follows this path by adding trancy elements with its most natural meaning. The floating melody sequences feel like they are soaked with energy of the elements that sourround us. The classic drum machine sequences feel more like wind than like banging Techno hits.

Simulation is heavily rooted in this 90's soundscape mixture of driven Techno and the Rephlex definition of IDM. It inevitably reminded me of Slag Boom Van Loon. A collaboration of Speedy-J and µ-Ziq from 1998. But without any doubt it has its very own quality.