Blank Disco - From Zero

Combining elements of techno and ambient, Blank Disco is the bran-child of electronica artist Dan Seville. From early beginnings in 2009, album From Zero is the culmination of two years of work and feels as much a piece of art as a record.

From the cold, mechanical beats and slow electro pulse of opener NYC, a wondrous futuristic sci-fi world is conjured up. Gradually accelerating like an engine, the track picks up speed, almost as if the inner workings of a computer have suddenly been made audible - this is music distinctly for the information age. Heavily distorted vocal samples enter the mix, creating the sound of a busy station of city intersection. The listener becomes one being, lost and alone in a vast crowd; the throbbing heartbeat of a city like NYC itself recreated perfectly. All the while, synthesizers writhe and whip like snakes; lashing out and snipping away, harsh and unforgiving.

From this point on however, the album takes on a far more laid back approach. Midsummer sees the beats fade away to a gentle sizzle, frying in the intensity of the mid-day sun. Rhythmic and hypnotic, as with the entirety of the album, every element of the song is clinical to the extreme. Even Numbers moves on to portray a different landscape - it feels watery, swamp-like; everything floating on a bed of bubbling electronics. It's a sound that continues into Where Are They Now? where it takes on a far darker, more melancholy tone. It's a moment to stop and contemplate, to speculate on the missing 'they' of the song's title.

With no vocals on the album, your attention is focused completely and utterly on the crystalline complexity of the tracks themselves and as the pace picks up again on No Good Reason and Falling Water, we see the album come full circle. There are so many levels you can take this album on - viewed from afar, with its icy blue modernist cover art, it feels minimalistic and hyper-artistic. But zooming in, the details work themselves out, coming to life in the most beautiful of ways.

From Zero is released on the 13th June.