Indubitably talented Tolga Fidan returns for his 3rd EP on Berlin’s fulcrum of funkified tomfoolery, Vakant Heavy Industries. Zee young Frenchman by way of first Istanbul and then London has again taken his varied past to transgress genre and fused flavors to birth a creation that would make even the Iron Chef shiver with inferiority.
A side and EP namesake ‘All Pleasure is Relief’ takes the now signature Vakant deep-tek chuga-chuga, complete with ultra clean pressing sub bass, and adds percussion and patterns hinting south and east. Live guitar played and recorded by Tolga unravels the grasp the ear had, then just as the dance floor has settled deeply into the track’s moods and grooves, a ghostly Persian vocal enters and the scope of musical expanse is revealed.
B side ‘For Our Fathers’ continues the deep multi ethnic feel of the EP, but a touch faster and with straighter rhythmic underpinnings. Guitar, synths, wails, and even what sounds like a harmonica all add expansive melodic textures, grounded in dance music but freely floating unbound by tradition or convention.
Redefining ‘world music’ somewhere behind the shielding refuge of techno, Tolga Fidan and Vakant have once more extended scenic and artistic frontiers.