2013 was a very good year for Welshman Benjamin O’Shea. In February this year, his well-received, debut album Heliosphere was released, which was included in 50Weapons – a label run by the duo Modeselektor.
Another reason why Benjamin may consider this year special is that he acquired a newly restored ETI 4600 modular synthesizer. This extremely rare machine, which for 18 months a colleague of Benjamin brought to a usable state, became the reason for the release of the latest EP for 50Weapons, called of course 4600.
Dominated by analog sound, Benjamin’s latest recordings are characterized by the rawness and roughness of techno from the 90s. The opening ETI Rework greets us with a distorted, angry loop from under which the germ of melody emerges, but quickly extinguished by subsequent percussion. Revolve, based on a simple chord around which successive distractions are crowded, masterfully builds tension to explode in the middle of the song with melodic, distorted keys. The convention of loop-based DJ tools also works well in the song Recursion, where you can hear Benjamin’s inspiration with Truncate recordings – monotonous synth, mechanical clapas and metallic hi-hats – in this track there is everything you need for a dance floor killer. The only recording that differs stylistically from the rest of the EP is Nebula – an ambient miniature captivating with a melancholic melody and contrasting analogue interference.
The thirty-first EP in the catalog of the 50 Weapons label perfectly reflects the ideas of this label – fifty “weapons for DJs”, albums that played in the club, will not allow anyone to stand indifferently or reflectively listen to them. Let’s just hope that with the fiftieth release the label will not self-destruct – this is an unresolved issue.