Blokkontroll
Odin Na Odin
Ratflak
Kyiv-based one-man act Blokkontroll has been on a tear for the last year and a half, self-releasing a slew of digital EPs which immediately established the project’s read on stripped-down to the studs and wholly manic EBM. Even for those of us constantly searching out new records of exactly this style, it was difficult to keep track of the torrent of 160 BPM missives washing over us. Hell, even if you ordered the selection of tracks from the first three EPs pressed on vinyl by the always sharp Oráculo label for Blokkontroll’s first physical release, one or two more EPs had probably dropped by the time the vinyl got to your door. First full LP Odin Na Odin offers a sustained blast of those same sounds Blokkontroll’s been hammering for the past eighteen months.
The core mix of sub-genres, component sounds, and moods Blokkontroll has been working with was laid out on day one. Rapid-fire pogoing kicks which blur the line between EBM and synthpunk, classic stabbing basslines, and anxiously shrieked vocals. That’s a formula that’s still very much in play on Odin Na Odin, with very little apart from slightly cleaner recordings and the addition of a few more leads and pads to flesh out the rhythmic programming distinguishing pensive opener “Opoznanie” from the project’s first release.
The BPMs vary a bit and there’s some reach between a moodier cut like “Yad” which recalls classic dark electro and tracks like “Algoritm” which lean into punkier rhythms, but Blokkontroll’s commitment to a no-frills approach can also lead to a fair amount of repetition, especially once the uniform bass sound’s kicked around your head for a few tracks. By the time penultimate track “Sfera” rolls around its tonal similarity to “Gorizont” kept faking me out into expecting to hear the icy chimes from the latter, no matter how many times I spun the record. That closing track “einanzopO” is, quite literally, “Oponzanie” played backward could be read as a knowing nod to the uniformity of the release.
It’s up to the listener to determine whether this extent of repetition is a feature or a bug, but one way or another there’s no denying the potency of Blokkontroll’s unremitting aggression even stretched out to a lengthy by their standards 37 minutes. The sound and style are blunt, direct, and packed full of the live-wire energy the style demands. If this is your first point of contact with the project, you’re getting a healthy slab of it; if you’ve already sampled Blokkontroll, you already know the score.
