¿Y not? – “Time Machine” – a vibrant and mesmerizing ambiance
Anyone who tries to move to “Time Machine”, or any other track by ¿Y not?, is cruising for a date with the chiropractor. Over and over the once firefighter, personal trainer, and now fitness and nutrition specialist, renders his rhythms intensely volatile by cutting and chopping the most diverse sounds, patterns and segments to create brilliantly bizarre beats. The reason that it works so well is because ¿Y not? can be likened to a mashup wizard, building electronic sandcastles in the sky out of Dubstep, Rave, Triphop, Electro, and anything else he can get his hands on. He takes experimental portions of layering and hinging sounds into a curtain of sonic effect.
“Time Machine” is a track that isn’t going to be for everyone and you shouldn’t feel bad if you can’t get into it straight off. ¿Y not? does not design soundscapes for the regular radio or club folk. You’d have to set aside preconceived notions of where Dance & EDM ends and experimental music begins.
The way the beat forms, the way the meter reads, and the sheer magnitude of the samples and sounds at work, may sit outside of your comfort zone, throwing you off at first. Give it a second chance though, and you’ll get it. In places where you heard a concentration of bombast, you’ll hear the separation of the beats and the background, making out the melodies and the layers. And, god, is it ever good.
I’m not even going to begin trying to break the track apart as a whole, as I’d need a couple of full pages to list the sounds and samples alone. Suffice it to say that when I spun through it the second time, “Time Machine” captured me in an almost hypnotizing way.
It has such a vibrant and mesmerizing ambiance to it, both in its rhythm and song structure that I found myself particularly drawn to that. Starting out like a backdrop to some avant-garde burlesque show, I loved the development of the track, the way it rushed forward and evolved into a funky horn blowing carnival pastiche. It hooked me pretty quickly.
What seems like a chaotic and bombastic mélange of sound, is actually a precise, cutting edge blend of creative acumen and masterful mixing, blown through a DDJ-400 Controller. ¿Y not? continuously constructs and deconstructs his themes, adding and subtracting motifs which build into anarchic beauty. An unrelenting throb of beats that refuse to morph into any one genre.
“Time Machine” is extraordinary in its abject refusal to be anything other than itself. This is music that wraps itself around your ears and sucks you into its sonic black hole with a mind-screwing relentlessness. “Time Machine” pushes the limits of electronic music and even questions the very rules of it.
This patchwork of sound and rhythm, is precise and deliberate music, meant to challenge and satisfy those looking for more than just the four-to-the-floor beats. ¿Y not? is amongst the audacious producers, exploring sounds far removed from the safe and snug bubble of sugary EDM.
There’s a logic to ¿Y not? and his musical creations, you sense it immediately. You just can’t decipher it within the same framework of time!
OFFICIAL LINKS: SOUNDCLOUD – INSTAGRAM
