Audion is the static, dancefloor-oriented side project of Matthew Dear. Conceived as a bawdy, voiceless take on Detroit techno and New York electro, it was introduced in the middle of the last decade to provide an outlet for Dear's baser desires, namely depictions of raunchy sex and electronic music freed from the need to sound artful or smart. Audion X, offered up 10 years after the release of Audion's sole album, Suckfish, collects 18 tracks from Audion's dozen-plus EPs and that album, and adds two new tracks in anticipation of a sophomore LP, due later this year. Even-numbered anniversaries aside, it's a peculiar reclamation, as Audion records are not particularly influential or coveted. Neither is its style—full-bodied machine funk—resurgent at the moment.
Dear's work as Audion stood out upon release in opposition to his work under his own name. Early albums Leave Luck to Heaven and Asa Breed established Dear as a wunderkind of the micro-house style—an understated, minimal take on techno famously championed by Cologne's Kompakt label. Dear has since proven himself something of a stylistic chameleon, eventually gravitating towards a celebrated electro-pop sound. He delivered some of his most compelling vocal work just last year as a foil to DJ Koze, his "magical boy." Back in 2004, though, Audion was everything Matthew Dear was not: explicit, stoopid, forward. Extended club cuts such as "Mouth to Mouth" and "The Pong" offered Dear a connection to the seminal Detroit techno sound (Dear spent part of his youth in Michigan) as well as to the rowdy electro on offer from tastemakers like Tiga and DJ Hell.
As Audion tracks are largely wordless mazes of rhythmic curlicues and farty bass noises, they earn the debauchery largely through their song titles. Titles like "Just Fucking" and "Your Place or Mine" feature. The sexiness might mean more to Dear than it does to us: his early work was nuanced and elegant to the point that you can imagine him producing a romping track like "Titty Fuck" and finding it sufficiently naughty so as to name it something like, well, "Titty Fuck". Audion tracks aren't really about sex, or at least they're no more about sex than lots of other funky machine music. That's okay: sometimes foreplay is wine and movie, sometimes it's sweating next to someone until 4am.
At present, Audion's sound is completely out of step with techno's prevailing trends, which favor harsh, industrial noise and dubby deconstructions. Audion tracks slave themselves to the groove: you won't remember specific drum patterns, and the hooks are short and repetitive so as to inspire maximum grinding. The tracks feel big. When "It's Full of Blinding Light" is careening around the room, you're not supposed to think of sound structure or art or music culture: you're supposed to wiggle. Tracks like "Mouth to Mouth" and "The Pong" are excellent reminders of techno's debt to funk and its unwavering commitment to any riff, bassline, or hook that inspires movement. At its best, Audion offers a rowdier take on the Kompakt/minimal techno sound that ruled the aughts. It's a beefier, fleshier mix, not as slinky as Ricardo Villalobos or as wily as DJ Koze, but brasher, harder, and dumber (by design).
Despite a fetching sound and some killer tracks, Audion X doesn't have much of a story to tell, not even one of artistic progression. Banging, erotic club tracks are Audion's singular purpose, and Audion X offers 18 of them, spanning nearly two-and-a-half hours. Spacey, atmospheric excursions like "I Am the Car" can span nearly 10 minutes. Most of the offerings are uniform in tempo, mood, and function. And while Audion X will leave no Audion fan wanting, a bevy of potent remixes were largely ignored. Audion X seems timed to rekindle interest in the Audion project prior to a new album, so it's worth nothing that the two new tracks here—"Motormouth" and "Sky"—are excellent. The former, in particular, dices a vocal sample into a mental, infectious mess.
Still, if the purpose of Audion X was to drum up interest, it may have the opposite effect. Audion X is all the Audion anyone will ever need—twice as much, actually. Dear's work as Audion was limited by design, and Audion X repeatedly shoves those limits into your face. Audion X is a stylistic indulgence, for both its creator and its listeners.
