Cortical - Wretched Permutations and a Golem Blueprint
- 1Telúrica (Exploited Body Remix)
- 2Mortar (unearth's Re-Flex)
- 3Wretched Patterns and Terrible Mistakes (Klahrk Remix)
- 4Mortar (Flore Remix)
- 5Wretched Patterns and Terrible Mistakes (georg-i's locked in a groove mix)
- 6Shiny Surgery (HYPNA Remix)
008
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Open edition
Having had a breakout year with performances across Europe and releases on Different Circles and Tectonic, Barcelona-based noise techno AV power-duo Cortical return to Plasma Sources with Wretched Permutations. Here, their experimental grime-techno noise crossover debut EP Wretched Patterns & Terrible Mistakes is reworked by a slew of experimental club heavy-hitters.
The result is a noise-tinged tour-de-force across the permeable boundaries of experimental club music, each element of Cortical’s immaculately visceral debut spliced, torn, and welded into new sonic realms.
First to take aim is Helsinki-based experimentalist Exploited Body, who somehow manages to up the ante on Telúrica’s apocalyptic charge, driving it into something utterly world-ending. Vocal chops cut through a doom-laden environment of noise before a militant kick/bass pattern straight out of Mick Gordon’s 2016 DOOM soundtrack - eviscerates everything in its path. Chops and rolling percs flicker in and out of the wall before dropping into a tense vacuum. The energy snaps back with a devastating 16th-note kick and bass pattern that dominates the spectrum, merciless in its pursuit of dancefloor destruction.
Up next is Plasma Sources family unearth, reworking Mortar’s relentless force into something far more claustrophobic and gravity-sucking. The original’s regal, obfuscated, Castlevania-adjacent sample opens proceedings before the airlock blows, gravity replaced with a super-tight, frenetic environment of reduxed pulsing kicks, grime 808s, and synth arpeggiations.
Operating within a classic grime lattice, the track moves in quickfire 8-bar succession: skittering claps, alarm tones, and high-tech percs pressing urgently forward as unearth’s signature uncanny-valley spaces swell from the blackness, creating tension between presence and absence.
WARE chief Klahrk follows, taking a pop at Wretched Patterns & Terrible Mistakes and twisting its energy into interlocking polyrhythms that expose the original’s inner machinery. Rolling with half-time, techy DnB propulsion, Klahrk balances frenetic motion with restraint, crafting a raw yet hypnotic environment that invites total immersion.
Leftfield music legend and POLAAR bosswoman Flore steps in next with her take on Mortar, animating an opening world of skittering drum patterns that echo, filter, and ricochet before collapsing away. From the debris we emerge into a dubbed-out, high-tension space of ricocheting rims, jungle-reminiscent pads, and glitched snatchings from the source material.
This gives way to a rolling half-time DnB pattern, expertly balancing moody spatiality with fizzing, shuffling breaks erupting around a bass-driven locus. Flore guides us through shifting motifs and moods without ever abandoning the lattice, developing energy continuously and with purpose.
Bristol club experimentalist Georg-i takes things in predictably unpredictable directions on their remix, as a relentless 4/4 ghetto-tech pulse undergoes constant tinkering and warping. An uplifting trance-leaning pad rises from the grit, carrying the listener upward through a sustained emotional ascent before the beat collapses inward, slamming back onto the dancefloor like a full-force gut punch. Grime pulses and fragments of the original gasp for air between the gaps before the pad lifts us once more, only to fold back down into the same lunacy-inducing state.
Plasma Sources label boss HYPNA closes out the package, giving Shiny Surgery a much-needed second chapter. The track ascends into the stratosphere on a hyper-hi-tech rolling half-time DnB framework, doubling down on the original’s bliss while injecting razor-sharp chords, sublime sub pressure, and spiralling synth arpeggios. Wet glitches and immaculate sound design puncture the euphoria as welcome interruptions, reintroducing moments of viscerality that pull us back toward Cortical’s sonic centre of gravity.
The result is a noise-tinged tour-de-force across the permeable boundaries of experimental club music, each element of Cortical’s immaculately visceral debut spliced, torn, and welded into new sonic realms.
First to take aim is Helsinki-based experimentalist Exploited Body, who somehow manages to up the ante on Telúrica’s apocalyptic charge, driving it into something utterly world-ending. Vocal chops cut through a doom-laden environment of noise before a militant kick/bass pattern straight out of Mick Gordon’s 2016 DOOM soundtrack - eviscerates everything in its path. Chops and rolling percs flicker in and out of the wall before dropping into a tense vacuum. The energy snaps back with a devastating 16th-note kick and bass pattern that dominates the spectrum, merciless in its pursuit of dancefloor destruction.
Up next is Plasma Sources family unearth, reworking Mortar’s relentless force into something far more claustrophobic and gravity-sucking. The original’s regal, obfuscated, Castlevania-adjacent sample opens proceedings before the airlock blows, gravity replaced with a super-tight, frenetic environment of reduxed pulsing kicks, grime 808s, and synth arpeggiations.
Operating within a classic grime lattice, the track moves in quickfire 8-bar succession: skittering claps, alarm tones, and high-tech percs pressing urgently forward as unearth’s signature uncanny-valley spaces swell from the blackness, creating tension between presence and absence.
WARE chief Klahrk follows, taking a pop at Wretched Patterns & Terrible Mistakes and twisting its energy into interlocking polyrhythms that expose the original’s inner machinery. Rolling with half-time, techy DnB propulsion, Klahrk balances frenetic motion with restraint, crafting a raw yet hypnotic environment that invites total immersion.
Leftfield music legend and POLAAR bosswoman Flore steps in next with her take on Mortar, animating an opening world of skittering drum patterns that echo, filter, and ricochet before collapsing away. From the debris we emerge into a dubbed-out, high-tension space of ricocheting rims, jungle-reminiscent pads, and glitched snatchings from the source material.
This gives way to a rolling half-time DnB pattern, expertly balancing moody spatiality with fizzing, shuffling breaks erupting around a bass-driven locus. Flore guides us through shifting motifs and moods without ever abandoning the lattice, developing energy continuously and with purpose.
Bristol club experimentalist Georg-i takes things in predictably unpredictable directions on their remix, as a relentless 4/4 ghetto-tech pulse undergoes constant tinkering and warping. An uplifting trance-leaning pad rises from the grit, carrying the listener upward through a sustained emotional ascent before the beat collapses inward, slamming back onto the dancefloor like a full-force gut punch. Grime pulses and fragments of the original gasp for air between the gaps before the pad lifts us once more, only to fold back down into the same lunacy-inducing state.
Plasma Sources label boss HYPNA closes out the package, giving Shiny Surgery a much-needed second chapter. The track ascends into the stratosphere on a hyper-hi-tech rolling half-time DnB framework, doubling down on the original’s bliss while injecting razor-sharp chords, sublime sub pressure, and spiralling synth arpeggios. Wet glitches and immaculate sound design puncture the euphoria as welcome interruptions, reintroducing moments of viscerality that pull us back toward Cortical’s sonic centre of gravity.
