Review: Le Revelateur - Hyper

I feel like I’m standing at an immaterial T-junction of the internet: data hurtling back and forth in binary pulses, prism refractions of orchestra drone shining through the centre, convulsions of electricity on all sides. I’m not sure where to look. Where music of the digital realm can sometimes be disconnected from its human conception, Hyper throbs and quivers with coding error and uploaded emotion, surging between states of sensationalist excess and sudden absence, as fluid and lively as anything in the corporeal universe. To focus on one specific sound at a time – which is hard work, given how urgently the other textures squeal for listener attention – is to appreciate that each has its own quirks and unique method of movement; gifted its own backstory, its own blood type, its own dialect. There are no background characters here.

The first listen is pure inundation. The sequence of sounds feels impulsive and spontaneous – synthesisers burst into life and promptly shut down, while drones surge briefly into the foreground and then anxiously retreat. With subsequent experiences, I become increasingly aware of the meticulous method within; the way that certain sounds are direct consequences of others, with soft clicks triggering the activation of ethereal chords, or digital rips signalling the violent disconnection of an Ethernet cable. One chatter will intensify until it causes rasps of digital latency, while quick-fire bass pulses power a sequence of ambient lights, like the labouring fan on a video projector. Hyper is a cascade of consequence; the constant renewing of “and then”; a labyrinth of radiant digital gateways, forever opening and opening. A beautiful, increasingly vast splay of data and digital interaction.