Croatian artist Robert Pain made quite the opening statement with his Black Queen album earlier this year. Self released and available for free it garnished a lot of praise within the darker techno underground, passing around message boards where it was universally praised. What I take to be its follow up is this; his Inquisition EP for Czech netlabel Transporta.

This is very dark and captivating techno without being harsh or aggressive. Scena I has that locked groove feel with a quite eerie whiney bleep throughout which reminds me of classic horror soundtrack themes. Scena II goes into broken techno territory incorporating crypt-like space between the beats. This journey gets deeper and darker, verging on being unsettling. Though Pain pushes the soundscape it never alienates itself enough that it retreats too far into harsh electronic abstraction and noise.

Third of the 4; Scena III reverts back to more standard techno beat programming absolutely nailing the sounds on that hypnotic loop. As the track builds Pain works in the atmosphere and synths giving them a dusty almost otherwordly affectivity building in a spectral like melody in the final minutes. Scena IV is a fitting end to this quartet of tenebrosity, bold drones overlay a restrained and focus beat.

All in all brilliant work and work that has firmly established Robert Pain on my radar of artists to watch. This is highly recommended listening.

Robert Pain – Inquisition EP
GRAB

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Robert Pain – Scena I
Robert Pain – Scena II
Robert Pain – Scena III
Robert Pain – Scena IV
CAT # TPR005