Holon

Japan's acclaimed minimalist Riou Tomita, whose incredible KK CDs were issued in the States by Invisible last year, branches into the breaks on this release recorded with Starfish Pool's Koen Lybaert. Lybaert, a former KK artist himself, recruited Riou for his Silver recordings label and debuted his Holon alter ego on the Starfish Pool Remixed collection of 1998. Together they combine the distinctive drone environments of Riou's techno tracks with hardcore breakbeats in cuts like "Checkpoint Noumea" and drill & bass edits in "Dimension Twenty-three." The slower-paced hip-hop tracks, like the opening "Conspiracy" and the dubbed "Desperate" trade the drones for the noise of dark hoppers Alec Empire and Techno Animal. There is not any English drum & bass-style beat sculpting in these 1997 sessions, but enough of Riou's fascination with sound to satisfy.