London-based, Bristol-born producer Otik has vision. Whether arched above this stretching record like a polestar or washed into the sublime and unknowing transitions at track level, Cosmosis moves with divine purpose.
Counter to the breakbeat dominated strain of techno that Otik has made his name with on earlier EPs such as Soulo, his full-length debut is far more contemplative, built on depth rather than agility. The gentle rotation of soft motifs, be it kick drums, hi-hats, or swirling key strokes is pastoral and radiantly pastel throughout, the production a fine mist that obfuscates grand structures hiding in the song’s distance that fade just out of reach into the promise of the next track when near.
Middle track ‘Rebirth’ best encapsulates the sultry sense of metempsychosis that pervades the record, with its wobbly bass unraveling in the background like bandages undressed from an exhumed mummy, awakening frozen questions. The track evolves into a stomping beat-driven trance, with a sense of transience and remembrance ballasting the shining and sidereal minor keys that illuminate the song’s soft exit.
By the closing, and oddly amphibious, rancour of sombre finale ‘Noontides’, a track that revels in the kind of longing and warmth of Burial’s familiar dusk, the song’s coda doesn’t strike you as a mirage nor an unfulfilled promise anymore, but instead an uncloaked unity linking the disparate stations of this album’s transit to its own reincarnation. A tremendously rewarding listen that catenates the flow of sound with the mystery of faith and transcendence.
