Parajekt is the Austrian duo of Bernhard Hammer & Matija Schellander, who create a sort of combination between the distant past and cutting-edge modernity, sequencing the kind of primitive rhythms once played communally on skin drums with analogue electronic devices and samples, for a kind of tribal IDM.  This self-titled album is a substantial forty-one minutes, with eight tracks.

Some artists have reached close to this style, such as Steve Roach & Byron Metcalf's tour de force of synth ambient and shamanic drumming, The Serpent's Lair, or the discography of Muslimgauze, who made electronically looped and processed hand drum his primary voice.  Compared to those, this release seems to lean further into heavy processing (the liner notes describe reworking initial recordings with 'dub techniques'), and the sequencing is more meticulously elaborate, creating odd syncopations and variations, rather than focusing on repetition.  

Some of the drum sounds have been eroded and cut to the point of being clicks and pops, recalling early 00's Raster Noton releases and experimentation of the early digital era.  As the album progresses, the rhythms of the drums become more disconnected and abstract, and I'm reminded of the numerological compositions of Z'EV's The Sapphire Nature, with its cut-up ritual procession of gongs, large kettle drums and resonating metal objects.  The music is too dense with activity and detail to be called 'ambient'.  

There is deep creativity in the sound design, with a massive variety of percussion sounds and noisy modular tones used as punctuation.  Every song is brimming over with new timbres.  Saturation is cleverly used to bring out new harmonics from the drums, and hefty, powerful tones.  Therefore, the sound is not 'clean', but rather rough and dirty in a very precisely calculated fashion. The gritty percussion is polished and sculpted just enough to fit contiguously with the subtle, eerie ambience: detuned swells of drone and air currents which move in three dimensions around the beat, creating the sense of a massive space.  The production is simply masterful.

The decision to make the entire recording centered around percussion is a significant one, as the esoteric feel would likely have changed with any kind of melodic synthesizer content or additional instrumental accompaniment.  The constantly shifting percussive landscape has enough to dissect all on its own, seemingly always subverting expectations and moving forward into unexpected places, with each song containing many distinct parts despite being only three-seven minutes.

This is an incredible recording which brings together many musical worlds and scenes.  For its novel sound design and detailed, thought-out tracks, it is perhaps one of the best electronic music works I have ever heard. To check it for yourself