IFA

Berlin’s Sascha Funke weighs in with a hard-hitting new four-tracker for Tiga’s label. Hot off his comeback on Multi Culti, this latest EP for Turbo Recordings takes the hypnotic, progressive vibe and drives it a little bit harder, leaning into every snare with precise power, carefully administering tension over the duration of professionally-paced arrangements. Title-track ‘IFA,’ already a weapon in the crates of Funke-friends like Rebolledo, Michael Mayer and Tiga, sounds like the kind of peak-time party power you’d expect those dudes to pull out in the darker hours of their deepest sets, when the soundtrack calls for more than basic, visceral limb-pumping, but full disorientation, actual mind-losing. ‘Robur’ rolls out of that space with minimalistic-tribalism, sounding like a mental apocalyptic march, pushing forward with intractable force, an energy which eventually relents on ‘MZ,’ opening up dramatically with an epic chord progression that blooms into ecstatic, piano-house. Think ‘old-school baby,’ revisited with bittersweet self-awareness, taking us back to a place we know well, inspiring one last dance, accessing the naive rave-spirit all-too often forgotten in the ‘industry’. Finally, ‘Barkas’ recalls the tones and timbres from ‘In Relationen,’ reflecting an emotionally placid state, a sound of radiant clarity, the sound of an artist at peace with his place in the cosmos, balancing past and future, energy and stillness, mind and body.