QONIAK - Mutatio

Qoniak - Mutatio

8 songs
39:56 minutes
***** ****
Hummus

Bandpage

Quoting artists like John Zorn, Sun Ra, Meshuggah, Daft Punk, Rage Against The Machine and Michael Jackson among their influences, and labelling their music as some kind of hybrid between techno, grunge, funk, avantgarde and improvisation, you know you won’t have an easy time with Swiss duo Qoniak.

The two musicians started out as high school friends, then later met again in jazz school. They often collaborate with top notch musicians, and when they find some free time together, they act as Qoniak. A first album was released in 2013, now followed by Mutatio. Their sound may be sparser than in the past, but also more powerful, and that by only playing drums and keyboards. Usually duos can sound rather tedious, due to a limited sound palette, but that is certainly not the case here.

The drums are played as precisely as a Swiss clockwork, pardon the pun! The keyboards sound very organic but also quite grimy. They usually deliver a bass part and on top of that a lead, so that in the end Qoniak sound like some kind of alien rock band, without vocals or guitars. The opener Scoul starts with a choppy rhythm that takes an experienced drummer to keep time like that. When the keyboards join, it feels like an extra-terrestrial djent. The following Coac is my personal highlight, comes with a sinuous keyboard melody, reminding me a little of The Moog Cookbook if they played dirty in the sandbox. Ipsum shows the duo’s more electronic side, merging the braininess and gutsiness of Aphex Twin with the melodic savviness of Squarepusher, except that this is hand played music through and through. Baobob contains even more strange keyboard sounds and also a jazzy electronic piano part, showing where the musicians stylistically come from. The album continues in that vein, at times experimental, then again melodic, always played tightly at an incredibly high level. On Qo we even get a synth that sounds like a very wet fart.

Qoniak are certainly not the first band that combined organic instruments with techno structures, but you rarely come across musicians that master their craft with such genius. Fans of intelligent dance music and adventurous progressive rock aficionados will be delighted.

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