Olorr has released his debut EP “Watergate” via the Italian label Dystant Recordings. The work of the Austrian-based producer Kevin Schwann, his inaugural release was inspired by water mythology and an imagined conception of what deep sea ambiance might mean sonically. The new five track release features three original cuts, a dub version of the track “3600,” as well as a remix of the title track by fellow Austrian producer Echion.
Possibly a nod to the classic Detroit techno duo Drexciya, and their aquatically themed oeuvre, discussing “Watergate” Olorr explains: “The back of the moon is more thoroughly explored than the dark expanses of the oceans.” While James Stinson and Gerald Donald‘s was a fully imagined “dimensional jumphole” between the African diaspora and urban life in the ’90s, Schwann uses the ocean’s deep dark expanse to model his cavernous and aphotic sound.
“Watergate” plunges into the cold ocean and seems to seek its’ nethermost regions on this continuous descent into sunless waters. The track’s off-kilter rhythm is marked by depth charged blasts of sub-bass and the clacking of industrialized drum elements, but it is the cut’s deep droning tone, waving in and out in slow undulations, that really suggests what it might sound like to plummet to the sea’s bottom.
If “Watergate” marked our descent into Olorr’s aquatic world, with “3600” we’ve arrived at the ocean’s lowest point. At these highly pressurized depths, an isolated ambiance takes over. With sunlight no longer able to reach this deepest place, eyesight must give way to the aural sense as we listen across the distance to faint whale calls and the slow waving motion of water. Like the opening track, the mood of techno seems to predominate, but unlike the initial cut, “3600” is ambient except for the occasional wooden clacking of some mysterious object somewhere off in the darkness.
“Cold Pressure” is the other original track on the “Wateregate” EP and it opens with resonating pads suspended in a watery matrix of sound. Hints of melody float in and out before receding back into the dark folds from which they came while the track’s lone drum element reverberates in icy echoes. Continuing the EP’s mostly ambient approach with techno undertones, Schwann’s sparse aesthetic is really what lends this debut effort its’ deep ocean feel.
