Djerro – XXmagick (Eesti Pops, 2015)

Published November, 2015
by Easterndaze

It’s only fitting that this record has come out on the Estonian label Eesti Pops – not shying away from pop, without necessarily having to rely on its emptied out tropes too much. What is pop anyway these days?

Far from being a dark and occult paean to Crowley’s magick, this “Magick” freely shifts between ambient/drone/post/dance/synth/kraut/pop/vocal experiments. A work of Erkki Tero, a seasoned Estonian musican, Djerro is his new solo project. XXmagick is basically two tracks around twenty minutes in length. Magick I is a monumental synth build up, a cosmic gradation that gets subdued and buoyant, drenched in cinematic soundscapes at times freeing, other times disconcerting. It finishes with arduous exhaling and the sound of footsteps. 

The second part – simply titled “Magick II”, starts with claustrophobic vocal experiments, in the vein of Holly Herndon’s work. Then it evolves in more concrete and pop-tastic way compared to the ambient abstraction of the first one. Interspersed with David Sylvian-esque vocals merged with female cooing. Towards the end, the vocal samples get more mangled and weird, dissolving in an echo of eternity.