Pictureplane — Technomancer
Pictureplane (aka Travis Egedy) is an US electronic producer who has been creating work since the early 2000’s- he’s most know for helping create the ‘witchhouse’ genre( which mixers together chopped-up & off-kilter hip hop beats with industrial & noise elements, and horror themes). He’s also dipped his toes in genres such as dark wave & other retro focused electronica genres. He’s put out work on labels such as Lovepump United Records & Isomorph Records- this new release appears on Anticon records.
Technomancer takes in eleven tracks in all, and these for the most part are fairly short- with the majority having a running time around the three minute mark, and a just few over the four minute mark. These tracks mix together moody 80’s EBM, throbbing & atmospheric synth craft, 90’s house( both underground & more pop-bound), more up-beat dark wave, dark synth pop, and a few darts into lo-fi 80’s industrial music. This is topped by a mix of Egedy vocals( which are fairly subbed & semi spoken), 80’s house diva wails, and subtle selection of 90’s sampling & scratching
On the whole it's a worthy & well put together release- with Egedy managing to mix memorability with 80’s/ 90’s atmosphere, and a neat kinda of retro futuristic vibe. I guess the only thing that does let some tracks down are the lack of power & depth in his vocals which at times do feel a little insipid - but thankfully he mostly surrounds his vocals with samples & the house diva vocalising, and these pull the whole thing up.