Joe Sousa may not be in your mental Rolodex under Detriot techno, but he's certainly doing what he can to help keep the style alive. What he captures so well on Agony Loops are the gritty and mechanistic sensibilities that the style is known for. How its spaced basslines seem uninterested in human approval and how beats ungulate of their own accord. What he also gets right is the extremely wet sound quality of this brand of electronic music. Agony Loops sounds like it was compiled on a hard drive that had been sitting submerged in a drum of motor oil since 1989 before it was fished out, cleaned with spit, and then slotted into an old PC tower which now hawks carcinogenic loogies all over the walls whenever the fans come on. The slick, greasy underbelly of the city works its way into the grooves of these tracks and lubricates the beats like they were the driving pistons of an angrily purring industrial relic. What's amazing about most techno in this style, and Agony Loops is no exception, is how it references heavy industry without specifically bringing to mind the industrial product the city is best known for- cars. The repetition, the fuming atmosphere, and the smooth relentless logic (not to mention its oily exterior) raise to the mind's eye a vision of great, towering mechanical inferna- stoic in its relentless activity and jealous of its foundation. Joe has brought to us the sound of a machine that is always in motion but never willing to give up the prize of its place or admit to its role in systems built to meet human need. It is like a corporeal phantom in this way. When I turn off Agony Loops, it still feels like it is continuing to stir despite me, proceeding to sift through the air somewhere in the background and beyond my ability to pinpoint its location. Its purposes are obscure and its energy is inexhaustible. Its presence is always perceptible even when it is not detectable by the senses.
Agony Loops is out on Clan Destine Records
