Some Reviews With Jimmy For Reals: Puzahki

Some Reviews With Jimmy For Reals: Puzahki – Minutiae

Posted by: Jimmy For Reals on March 23, 2014

Brisbane’s Puzahki isn’t exactly a newcomer to electronic music, having peddled his wares for over a decade now, but he’s a man with so many fingers in so many pies that it’s hard to keep tabs on him. You might have come across his music as half of Total Stranger, or hardware based live act Monologue, but if this is your first encounter with him as Puzahki you’ve timed it pretty well, as Minutiae is his most refined and substantial work to date. Comprising five original tracks and four remixes, the EP demonstrates a dextrous and frenetic approach to production, as brazen as it is sophisticated. Perhaps what makes it so special though, is Puzahki’s attitude towards collaboration; rather than splitting the EP into standalone tracks and remixes, it interesting to see him interspersing his own productions with those of the remixers, a theme which also runs through the project as a whole.

Calling this IDM isn’t exactly doing it justice, but then again neither is calling it Techno or Glitch, so let’s settle with something broad and vaguely appropriate like ‘experimental’. What it is, is sharply executed, tautly aggressive and thoroughly exhilarating music. The whole EP is bookended by excellent downtempo interpretations from Moscow Abandoned Hotel, opening with his remix of Introduction which nicely offsets the chaos of the tracks to come. Last Boss Level kicks things right into gear, winding hardware acid stabs around pulverising beats before taking time out to intermittently spiral off into arpeggiated cyclones of colour. Elsewhere 80’s Cops is a much subtler beast but no less devastating as a result, whereas Stumbling Blocks fairly annihilates the rest of the field, sounding to all intents and purposes like a giant, sentient automaton tearing itself apart in the final throes of a critical software failure.

To cap matters off Puzahki has collaborated with Melbourne artist Joe Baker of Baked Labs for a series monochrome film clips which probably deserve a review of their own. There’s a couple of them to view here, but it’s definitely worth your while to head over to the Craig Makes Music Vimeo page so you can view them all in sequence. Joe’s background as a A/V artist has already established his reputation as a formidable talent but these video’s really take the cake, particularly his offering for 80’s Cops, which starts out as a mundane still life 3D modelling exercise before losing the plot entirely, his mind fucking counterpoint to Last Boss Level, a flickering, warping greyscale world which will probably give you those square eyes your parents warned you about, and an appropriately beautiful accompaniment to the EP’s sweetest moment The New Room – a collaboration between Puzahki and his wife & production spar Chupi.

Check the full video releases via Vimeo here and Puzahki’s Soundcloud here.

Puzhaki’s ‘Minutiae’ EP coming soon via Ender Records.

Some Reviews with Jimmy For Reals runs weekly – stay up to date with his latest selects exclusively on The Operatives.