Club Furies

Krater Music is a music label based in Mexico, focused on electronic music, mental loops, and synthesized communication. It is an electronic music label in constant search for unique sounds around Latin American culture. Their music catalogue has an infinite range of textures, genres, and distinctive sounds, made by producers from all regions and influences within the Mexican borders.

His newest release is the new ambient music EP by Katfish – the collaboration between David Durst and Lewis_33 – entitled «The Inventor of Marvelous Figures«. In the electronic realm, it presents a unique listening experience that seamlessly weaves the rich tapestry of sonic influences with electric landscapes. Characterized by a fusion of traditional instrumentation and cutting-edge electronic production techniques, the album invites listeners on a sonic journey that transcends geographical boundaries.

The compositions were developed under the influence of the work of the European painter Hieronymus Bosch – known for his work The Garden of Earthly Delights. The processes of contemplation in some of his well-known pieces led the project to carry out a thorough sonic abstraction of what the painter’s pieces could generate as lysergic soundtracks reflecting the vibrant colours while exploring the limitless possibilities of electronic music.

Whether through the gentle rhythms of old-school instruments or the pulsating beats of modular elements, Katfish creates a musical landscape that reflects the dynamic synergy between relaxation and meditation, offering a sonic experience that is both resonant and futuristic in its vision. The project features a very special guest from Canada. Techno producer jTear performs a reinterpretation of the track that serves as the album’s single, entitled Hierony (the painter’s nickname among his primary circle according to what has been recovered).

The work has very special videos, made by two artists from Jalisco who have a close relationship with the project. As a visual designer and prompts architect, the great TOUST carried out the artificial intelligence creation of the whole style of the images. On the animation and video editing side, we have the studio vashestudio, which made use of movement and special effects to give the images life and narrative in line with the manifestos of the European painter.

Hierony‘s sound swings a beautiful pendulum between expectant throbbing bulbs and semi-apocalyptic, almost hopeless, crunching sands, perched in unknown deserts. All this in aesthetic and cyberpunk environments. It is an atmosphere that comes almost to the nonsense. Between the ancient past and the distant future, there is a sound synthesis that is striking, something that is perfectly illustrated by The Vision of the Beyond, a painting by the famous painter from 1504. The fact is that his times are perennial in the present, an almost insurmountable paradox: in the present they become infinite. This is achieved through a clean and brilliant sound design, which enables depth as well as amplitude, reaching longitudinal sound notes. The end result is an exhalation that lasts for all the centuries of the earth and the universe, past and future.

The Elder is a sonic hiatus that embeds itself in the interstices of time and space, cracking its nominal limits. But don’t let the word confuse you. In a work rich in concepts, foundations, and sound design, the hiatus is equally or more important than the rest of the songs. It is a hiatus that enables and enhances the sound. If the previous track had inserted into the sound the very broad tenses, past and future, in the present, the sound now has to find a way to grasp such complexity. It achieves this in the first instance by cracking the usual boundaries. Once it has made a dissent, it is underpinned by glittering diamonds and sophisticated electronics, to which the ambient sound transverses to achieve the perfect symbiosis. Thus, cracked times and spaces take on new meaning in the sound of The Inventor of Marvelous Figures.

Dendrochronology is the science that uses the growth rings of trees, dated exactly to the year of their formation, to generate time series that can be used for the reconstruction of climatic variables such as precipitation, temperature, and evaporation, among others. It is also a way of analyzing Bosch’s paintings. The sound of Dendrochronological is presented as the most rupturist of the release, crushed in its rhythms, changing in its structures, chameleonic in the creation of ambiances and atmospheres, and constantly dying and reviving. This generates mood swings in the listener/dancer, leaving him thinking about his sound. In the end, the sweet hammering, quickly swirling into robotic Nintendo sounds, transports us to the time warp. All this opens Rosen-Einstein bridges that leave us in sonic nothingness…

And at the end is the beginning. The Dub version of jTear to Hierony plays to be the god of the universe. With a sound that resembles the interplay of metal and analogue tools, while the atmospheres blanket us in distant yet close universes, we wonder who is making each sound. Perhaps it is probably a Skynet machine playing with some stray human in the post-apocalyptic world. With unassailable perseverance and a precise pulse, the sound design achieves perfectly balanced structures and diaphanous futuristic atmospheres. As every pulse has to give way at some point, so does the sound, which confronts ethereal chases and corrosive decompositions.

It’s time to get lost in Hierony‘s sound imagery, following the visual work of TOUST and vashestudio. In a contemporary social environment constantly excited by visual perceptions, getting lost in the images of Hierony‘s videos, both in their original version and in jTear‘s version, must be an essential act. And that is because of the subtlety of movement, as well as the zoom effects, and the fleeting halos, as the marvelous figures of Bosch come and go, perform an act of performativity. In their performance, they create the reality enunciated. To get lost in its audiovisual labyrinth can be a cause for anguish; however, one must let oneself be carried away by its images and sounds, to lose oneself in the lostness, to enjoy the abstraction and depth of this sonorous and visual artistic work.

The Inventor of Marvelous Figures plays with two fundamental elements, on which the structures of sound and semantic meaning are built. On the one hand, almost absolute hopelessness, which, nevertheless, remains nostalgic, and on the other, utopian futures that are almost attainable. This sonic pendulum achieves almost infinite vertices, from which versatile, symbiotic, and infinite rhythms, atmospheres, and ambiances are constructed. We are used to works of this complexity and sonic perfection from Krater Music, who we know only releases sophisticated and finely crafted material. This time, it is no exception, and – dare I say it – represents an impasse towards the evolution of their sound, through the collaborative work of David Durst and Lewis_33 in the hands of Katfish.

At the same time, it is a contentious statement that the potentials of electronica, rooted in the perception of the infinite, are still intact. And that, dear readers, is no small thing, in a context that those potentials seem to have come to an end. The inventor of marvelous figures reminds us that, from the past, the future becomes infinite in its sounds; and that conceptual richness and complexity do not have to result in a sonic loss. So this new release from Krater Music has to be on your shelves and is already signed as one of the best releases of this year -and yes, only ten days into the year, we can say so.

Album: The inventor of marvelous figures
Artist: Katfish [David Durst & Lewis_33]
Remix: jTear
Label: Krater Music
Catalogue: KM043
Format: WAV/MP3
Genre: IDM/Electronica
Visual Designer: TOUST
Post & FX: TVASHESTUDIO

Release Date: January 8th. 2024 on Bandcamp
Available on all streaming platforms

Tracklist
1.- Hierony
2.- The elder
3.- Dendrochronological
4.- Hierony DubMix – jTear

Katfish

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jTear

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Lewis_33

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David Durst

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Krater Music

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Club Furies

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