Tatratank – 0xAM (Exitab, 2015)

Published March, 2015
by Easterndaze

If you take a look on the album notes, you will find out that some excerpts of this release were recorded in 2009 already. And that is actually not the time when Tatratank started to make music. Together with his old friend EGA they established probably the first netlabel in Slovakia, badrecords.eu, in the small Slovak city of Ružomberok. So we are talking ancient history here, things that probably took place around 2005. Shockingly, Tatratank’s first officialy proper release only happens now, ten years later 2015.

0xAM is basically a musical journey through everything that has happened in the world of music over the last 10 years. Glitchy sounds, complex soundscapes, most importantly, the juke oriented rhythms, which give the entire album dat urban feel. As Tatratank’s name would suggest some brutal and massive sound exorcism, let me stop you there and tell you not. Andrej’s tracks are maybe frenetic and full of ideas, but it is far from rough or dark techno. Still, album borrows aspects from the aforementioned genres and treats them in a nice way. Also, the amount of ideas used here is impressive. Less impressive, however, is the way how Tatratank handles them, his approach reminds me of an ADHD kid that with a short attention span. You have a short and catchy motif that ends after a minute without any further development, which is a shame. Around 25 minutes of the material are loaded with ideas, but maybe it would help if there were fewer motifs, which then could stretch themselves into their own, smaller narratives with more complex and built-up compositions. If this release is supposed to represent the hectic days in which we live now, let it be. Tatratank is undoubtly a skilled producer and some more narrow focus would help him produce a more solid release. 

By B.arctor