♫♪  Bataille Solaire - Dolby’s ON

Dolby is WAY ON, man. Fuuuuuu[ck](dge).

Bataille Solaire never ceases to drop my jaw. Remember last year’s YMO-worshipping JAP, whose ~10 minute running time sped through enough perfectly sequenced synth layers, earworm melodies, and gonzo beats to constitute its own mini modern technopolis? The man, born Asaël Robitaille, makes full-on prog, weighted with seemingly infinite stimuli, and doesn’t care who knows it. We know it, and we love it.

Enter Dolby’s ON, a proper long-player that skirts closer to all-consuming digital apocalypse than any proper “danceable” jams. What am I saying? You can dance to this. Easily. Stand up. Hunch over a little bit and stick your butt out. Flop your arms around like a giant baby. It’s fun.

Seriously though. The sheer density of these tracks, blasted at us in overload after overload of electronic input, boggles the mind. “Boul” straddles the realms of complete glitch-out and techno banger. “Lapino Club Mix” rushes over battering rave crashes and mangled basslines, showcasing a seemingly boundless lattice of synth rhythms that never once seems to repeat itself. Closer “Horn dans la ville” compresses its skitters and clangs into three slow-burning minutes that wash out with the gentle hum of consonant chordal figures.

brb y’all. I’m going to jam Dolby’s ON again. No reason to stop now.

• Bataille Solaire: https://bataillesolaire.bandcamp.com

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