U Feel Anything?

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Berlin-based Mika Risiko runs an all-inclusive event series titled Boo Hoo and produces experimental club music under the name Ziúr. U Feel Anything? is her full-length debut following a pair of EPs and a grip of remixes, and it's a brilliant showcase for her explosive yet focused production style. She typically contorts harsh, aggressive sounds into danceable rhythms, often incorporating glitched-out grindcore drums or smashing glass noises, subtly woven together with futuristic bass sounds. It's highly intense and forceful, but with a sense of restraint to it -- there's a lack of background clutter beneath the stop-start rhythms. Tracks such as "Cipher" and "Don't Buy It" spike their attack with some rave energy, and "Fractals" is a highly advanced rhythmic collage of pummeling drums and granulated metal guitar riffs. Ziúr has her sweet, compassionate side, however, and she expresses it with a few extraterrestrial pop tunes filled with mangled voices and gelatinous synth textures. "Soaked" is the most starry-eyed of these, with a high-pitched pixie voice repeating "Baby, oh baby" over fluid, sparkling textures and stammering beats. Aïsha Devi guests on the more abstract, unsettling "Body of Light," and Zhala's turn on "Laughing and Crying Are the Same Things" is every bit as emotional as the title suggests, switching from Björk-ian enrapturement to M.I.A.-like playfulness. True to the humanist, pro-diversity message of Boo Hoo, Ziúr begins the album with "Human Life Is Not a Commodity," a collage of voices whispering and chattering in different languages over a smudged ambient drift. U Feel Anything? is a powerful, exciting album that encompasses a wide range of moods, seemingly designed to elicit an enthusiastic response from the listener.

© Paul Simpson /TiVo