Action Building System, by The Demix
Milwaukee DJ/musician The Demix may be more prolific as a concert promoter, largely via vis MELT electronic revues, than a recording artist. So, when he does issue new material, he does well to make it worth the wait.
Action Building System, his follow-up to 2024’s Delusion, rewards anticipation for multiple reasons. His use of live playing, sampling, editing, remixing and other sonic manipulation techniques in often seamless manners makes the project work as a calling card for the manifold disciplines at which he's adept. The Demix plies that know-how in an aurally wide-ranging concept album that at times recalls Wax Trax!-Records styled industrial disco, sinister grandeur ala Laibach, and copious use of (purposefully) found vocals from numerous sources.
Though the music on the five-track project often possesses the cinematic quality that would make it work for some especially dystopian science fiction tale, it's the spoken bits that advance ABS' theme and make it evident. And the gist of that theme is, to paraphrase Demix's own take on his work, reconciling the instability of shaky systems in which people operate with the need to act decisively within the frameworks of one's beliefs, technology, control and intelligence.
That kind of textual heft doesn't lend itself to the kind of barely controlled chaos Demix has conjured on some previously releases; that's as it likely should be and works well. And though there are segments of System that could be edited for dancefloor fodder, it's likely best heard as a whole. It's another worthwhile sonic achievement from a figure apt to create them on the fly.
Get Action Building System on Amazon here.
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