Utopien I begins with “Epikouros”, which starts with a heavy, distorted, brassy pad that is soon accompanied by higher pitched bell-tones that play forward and backwards in a repeating pattern. A reso-sweeped synth joins the fray, and soon so does a single bass drum hit with a delay effect on it. A lower-pitch choir-ooh comes in and adds even more weight to the sound. An oboe plays in a mangled fashion at the edge of the mix, becoming louder and louder. Then, a formant patch plays in dissonance with the rest of the notes, some distortion erupts briefly, and returns later. The oboe pitch-slides around chaotically. The music cuts out except for the tone playing in dissonance and the oboe, and a resosweeped synth. The song ends.
“Cargo Cult” has some ring modulated noises, with some noise with a delay effect on it. A bass is played in an odd time signature with delay on it also. There is a drone of some sort in the background. The ring-modulated noises become faster. A stringed instrument plays with a lot of reverb on it, and is joined by a distorted guitar that plays a few tentative notes, then fades into quiet, and then back again. There is fret noise with a lot of delay and reverb on it. A brassy synth pad plays with distortion as the fret noises continue. The brass begins a fade in which is long and loud, and sustains with quite a bit of resonance. The resonance shifts. The resonance on the various instruments in the song go wild. Finally, the song breaks down to a few instruments and the ring-modulated noises. The guitar plays with some noise and feedback, and the song fades out.
“Coup d’Etat” begins with some hissing static and a constant beep that sounds like a warning alarm of some sort. The noise twists and turns in the background, and the alarm stops. There is some tapping on a surface of some sort put through quite a few effects, and then some loud, almost-but-not-quite bassy periodic noise. Some ring modulation comes in, there is a flubbing noise, and some sounds like a jackhammer heard distantly. A tonal noise plays in a pattern and drones on. Ring-modulated percussive sounds like claps can be heard. The flubbing plays with popping ring-modulated sounds and there is distorted bassy sounds with the popping, and the track ends.
“Khormanoupka” begins with a distorted string instrument playing lowly with some reverb-soaked percussion that plays with a slow delay effect. Clicking sounds with delay on them become more and more prominent in the mix. There is a quick reso-sweep, and then a distorted, resonant synth plays. The resonance is played with a bit. A distorted guitar, also with delay on it, comes in playing a couple power chords. There is hissing noise that crawls to prominence, and some resonant pops. A drum is hit very heavily, pitched down, and a very distorted synth can be heard, as resonance is played with on it. Resonance is being altered on another track as well. It sounds like drums are being played backwards at this point, with a distorted synth droning first at one octave, then at the one below it. The droning synth drops out. Again, resonance is played with, this time being highly distorted and screaming. Then, the track and album come to an end.
(https://karlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/utopien-i, €7 EUR for digital, €18.99 EUR for vinyl)
