Single Review | Aydio – ‘The Surface of a Revolution’
On countless occasions, you’ve probably heard musicians talk about how their musical influences are sourced from far and wide, meaning their tunes have buckets of novelty and fusion within. Probably just as often, your scepticism is right: their claims are exaggerated and the music is fairly one-dimensional. Not so with Aydio, a London-based producer who has substance to back up press promos.
Musical osmosis is undoubtedly a part of Aydio’s make-up, and his new single, ‘The Surface of Revolution’, is a testament to his diverse tastes.
Although primarily an electronic tune with a heavy trance and trip hop bent, the highlights of the composition’s many layers are from further afield. Beefy, wailing guitar leads, syncopated, tribalistic percussion, and warped jazz overtones seep in and out of the mix via expert crafting; Aydio knows the delicate art of balance.
The artist follows the tried and true format for loop building by slowly introducing new concepts as the song progresses, breaking it down mid-way, and resolving all together to conclude. It reaches peak trance in the middle section where the melodramatic, hazy synths float on the aural horizon while sampled female vocals mark themselves as a key motif. The finale coalesces the many musical characters into a busy and ever-morphing collage of textures and tones – it’s a highly original and beautiful melding of abstract ideas.
Early material from Quantic comes to mind with Aydio’s sampling skills, especially the beats and jazzy undercurrent. It almost feels incumbent that some sampled spiritualism is due to grace the track as it mellows down, though it seems Aydio is yet to toy with the wisdom of Alan Watts and his ilk.
‘The Surface of a Revolution’ is a promising release, but future work from Aydio would do well to explore more obscure sampling akin to Oneohtrix Point Never. Abstraction and mystique come naturally to him already, and there’s a lot of character left to be carved out.
4/5
