Grooves (US)

This is Doron Sadja’s debut release on 12k, and it could hardly be more impressive. Working with pitches on or near the threshold of human hearing, Sadja has constructed five stunning pieces of visceral electronics whose very physical impact on the listener is not unlike that of Pan sonic of CoH. On A Piece of String, a Sunset, Sadja uses nearly identical sinewaves throughout in a manner that at times is almost exquisitely painful, raising your blood pressure and the hairs on the back of your neck.

This is not typical ascetic microsonic fare, though Sadja, who is currently styding music and technology at Oberlin College, can create razor sharp clicks and pops with the best of them – on track 4 (all tracks are untitled), he even conjures up a refined serving of microhouse. But it is with the more abstract pieces, such as the rumbling closing track, that Sadja really seals the deal: Starting almost inaudibly, it then unleashes rumbling low tones that threaten to overwhelm your circadian rhythms before letting you off the hook with some quasi-dreamy guitar work. Very impressive, indeed. – Susanna Bolle