Review: Olymphia – Music for a Dance Performance

Olymphia
Music for a Dance Performance

Posh Isolation
Street: 05.22
Olymphia = Ben Frost + Micromelancolie + Pleq

It is an interesting thing, scoring music for a dance performance that does not actually exist. But Olymphia have done just that. These five pieces are written for synthesizers long-form electronic numbers that crackle and churn with industrial clank and dread—imagine and portend a dance performance of sinewy dancers moping and/or gracefully leaping across performance spaces with equal amounts of poise and grace. On Music for a Dance Performance, Lust for Youth member Loke Rahbek and Kristian Emdal (of Lower) create disorienting mood pieces that explore extremes in tonality—the metal-on-metal scrapes in the high register and the machine-ambient sub-bass  rattles and surges just above perception. These compositions are not entirely beatless; but rely on carefully parsed, almost incidental percussion that ranges from data-driven insanity to far off thuds, lending the tracks form in the void. This should be the gateway drug out of EDM and into dance performance music—no Chief Headdresses,please. –Ryan Hall