Somewhere between memory and immediacy, Production Unit Xero explores the Uncanny Valley of his youth with Seattle’s enereph on one of Heterodox’ Record’s most personal, yet relatable, releases to date.
Recalling a time when I was quite young, about seven, in the backseat of my parents’ car. A strip mall parking lot, waiting for them to pick something up. I stared into the window and saw my reflection faintly in tinted glass, apparition in the framed piece of sky. I looked at my face and spoke my name, the meaning of which was my face. I repeated this again and again, feeling the once-tight equivalence of name and face drain slowly of its power until suddenly they were severed and I fell.
Thus explains the origins of premoniss | Bukimi no Tani Genshō by Heterodox Records co-founder Ramon Mills and Seattle’s enereph, recalling early childhood memories of enereph’s Connie Fu and a period in the wake of a breakup in which Production Unit Xero’s Ramon Mills found himself living in a too-small apartment. The skeletons and barebones sketches of premoniss } Bukimi no Tani Genshō, originate from this liminal phase, which Mills refers to as “his Uncanny Valley” created solely with an Octatrack and an iPad and subsequently rediscovered and reappraised due to the enerep’s enthusiasm.
premoniss I Bukimi no Tani Genshō is an album of internal tensions with sometimes almost contradictory impulses – Earth, sky; personal, relatable; isolated, connected. Production Unit Xero and enereph harness these contradictions and give them voice, drawing upon the entirety of adventurous and experimental electronic music of the last 50 years. Futuristic beats are interspersed with abstract collage which, in turn, gives way to Vaporwave’s digital spray. At times bringing to mind the beat-ific side of Boards Of Canada; the clean room machined precision of Autechre; still others modern classical composers like John Cage or Iannis Xenakis, premoniss | Bukimi no Tani Genshō ends up like nothing else on Earth – a visionary album of forward-looking sci-fi electronica that tells a highly personal story.
premoniss | Bukimi no Tani Genshō is further illuminated by an art book featuring surreal line drawings from both enereph and Production Unit Xero, offering further glimpses into the interior world of both.