Fukanzen'na Ongaku by Your Silent Face

Manchester’s Your Silent Face returns with his fourth release on Tethys Records: ‘Fukannzen’na Ongaku’. Translating roughly as ‘Incomplete music’ in Japanese this 5 track EP has been inspired by the crossover between ambient, techno, and pure sound design. It reflects, as the EP’s title indicates utilising a process of allowing sound to develop without forcing a result: a work of art that is never truly finished.

He encouraged the blending of sounds from different synths to create their own harmonic overtones and polyrhythms, and overlaid variant phrases. The EP reflects this sense of slipstream, and transition between places, states, and timezones.

The EP ranges between hypnotic hypercity techno and textural soundscapes via deep driving acid. Deep techno destroyer ‘I am not what you seem’ demonstrates a sonic continuity with other Your Silent Face releases. Shinjuku, inspired by evenings amongst Tokyo’s neon and skyscrapers, is bass heavy, with a turbulent acid line creating a compelling groove.


Included is Chuo Line (Quiet mix), a version of a collaborative track created with Yorkshire ‘new weird’ artist David Creese for their upcoming Spirit Monitors album. Chuo Line (Quiet mix) asks what happens to a dance track when it dies and becomes a ghost of itself?

This EP contains both signature deep Your Silent Face cavernous bass and narcotic melodies; and newer, burbling acidic grooves. Contemplative soundscapes round out the EP, uneasy and liminal deliberations fitting for the strangest year of our lives.

With influences spanning early synthpop, EBM, pioneering industrial, and the icy techno of artists like Rrose and Surgeon, Your Silent Face creates efficient techno and dystopic electronica, with an aesthetic that is both mechanical and melodic.