Onium – Immix EP

From the seedy depths of dub-infested marshes comes the sound manipulations of Onium, a tenured producer with a handbag of pseudonyms and secret projects. The man behind the moniker, Stephen Moon, uses this alias to focus heavily on expanding the ‘dub techno’ genre. Always pushing the edge while seemingly staying true to the dub framework, Onium partners his vast knowledge of song creation with a deep understanding of what makes dub techno amazing. Harmonious Discord first featured Onium in the Discordian Dreaming series which resulted in a call to headquarters for more. Delivering on that promise, the label is proud to present Onium’s debut full length, the Immix EP, with remixes by artists forging ahead in sound like Echo Conscious, Bleupulp, and Hemipetra.

The journey begins with a deep breath of relief stretched into a progressive build of elastic dub melodies. Lulling the listener in, “He Breathes” creeps along before busting out later in the tune with heavier techno attributes. “Opslo” follows in a similar unwinding fashion with two key dub themes that dance in-between each other as subtle percussion scurries intriguingly. Echo Conscious — real name Brad Dale — is first up on remix duties with his cowbell-laden groover. Brad elevates the mood to be more relevant on the dance floor, turning the subtle original into an attention grabber with bright bells and a smoothly shifting bass line. From there the release takes a dive into the subversive depths of cerebral techno with contributions from Hemipetra and Bleupulp. Rumbling echoes of dissonance converge as these two selections travel into strange soundscapes. This changes with “Piped,” a melodic tech-house experiment still heavily swamped with dub effects that does a great job of balancing dub techno purism with real world feet fodder. A worthy book-end, “Sharing Light” takes dub chord construction to new levels, paying special attention to revolving melodies. It’s a meditative windstorm ready to drift the listener into the outer reaches of the stratosphere. Thus the journey ends … for now.

Label and Artist Links:

www.hdrecordings.com
www.soundcloud.com/onium