DJ Aakmael’s Crack EP is a two track exploration of simple beats underneath washed out synthesized electronic grooving. The simple beats keep the EP from getting too hurried and keep the necessary movement to light swaying and knowing head bopping.
The first track, Crack, is the foundation. It begins with a kick drum and cymbal beat that promises to stay in the background throughout the entire song. The beat acts like the heart of the song, pumping music from a deeply rooted center out towards the more complex extremities. Layered on top of that is another constant sound, the electronic synth. On this title track, the elements remain simple and are looped. The synth isn’t some complex bodily action, like moving the limbs, but is instead the breathing body. Other than a short horn solo, interlude at the 4 minute mark, Crack stays with the elements that it knows throwing in a tambourine on top of then beat if things get too repetitive. It’s a good mood track.
Aakenstein, the second track, feels like something that MF Doom would sample. The song opens with what sounds like a sampled soundtrack, a snippet of atmosphere music taken from an old science fiction or mystery show. This fades to the foreground as the kick drum and cymbal take over along with an elastic jaunt of notes. Aakenstein is quickly more complex than Crack, providing an array of directions that a dancing body can turn to. As well as the even body bop that the constant beat offers, there is room for more spastic explosions with the scratches, and the background ethereal sound provides for the most keyed in listeners to space out and really feel the music.
The EP dangerously straddles the line of remaining interesting while doing so little and looping elements and falling to boring, but avoids this with the enthusiasm and inspired movement.
