Album Review: "Ground" by Bob Data (STURM)
by Stina Isabel Gavrilin
When Bob Data aka Aleksandrs O. Berzins from Latvia played in Krematoorium, the harsher dancefloor of Beats From The Vault in the winter of last year, he fit in the environment perfectly. Even though it’s the kind of enchanting slow minimalism that you might usually hear in Kabel, the machine-like precision and coldness almost felt like it belonged in a techno club. As one half of the duo Irklis, this was the second time for him at BFTV since their live set in 2022.
On his new EP “Ground”, Bob Data travels further into the realm of club music, with rhythms getting punchier and increasing in tempo. It’s worth noting that when it comes to electronic music, the cover art of a record often sets imagery that stays with you throughout the listening experience. The cover image of “Ground” immediately makes this record his most three-dimensional yet, and takes me down into the sewers.
The EP starts on a much darker and more serious tone than what we’re used to hearing on Bob Data’s previous releases. The ominous drone and electro beats of the intro track “Kinetic Rush” get softened in the last minutes by a futuristic synth melody reminiscent of Gary Numan’s groundbreaking early years. Cooling down the record, the downtempo rhythm of “Inspection” and sluggish flow of “Richochet” take you back into 1990s experimentalism. The third track eventually snaps right back into a post-apocalyptic imagining of the future with its sci-fi synth soundscapes.
“Skin Changer” arrives in pure cold electro fashion with exactly the kind of captivating drive you’d expect from Clock DVA’s classic computer-powered second coming, all the way up to present day. The penultimate chapter “Bystanding” with it’s all-encompassing synth and hypnotising tick is the track that immediately pulls you above ground and eventually ends up on the rooftop in Blade Runner. Finishing the EP with rolling hi-hats is the aptly named “Pattern Halt”, dispersing the rhythms into a noisy culmination.
Berzins himself describes this record as “surreal dark electronic music for natural earthlings”, which rings true as I would say “Ground” is definitely his most emotionally loaded release to date.
"Ground" on Bandcamp: https://bobdata.bandcamp.com/album/ground
