Tangent – Evolutionary Cycles (Album – n5MD)
Genre/Influences: Ambient, Experimental, Cinematographic, IDM.
Format: Digital, Vinyl.
Background/Info: Hailing from The Netherlands the Tangent duo Ralph van Reijendam – Robbert Kok has been active for numerous years. After noticeable works released by Mindtrick Records and the defunct Tympanik Audio they signed to n5MD. “Evolutionary Cycles” is the duo’s sixth full length album featuring eight new tracks.
Content: The title of the album probably has nothing to do with the band’s own evolution, but there clearly is a link when you know the band’s career. Tangent remains faithful to some of their early influences, but there always is an evolution. This new work sounds as the perfect offspring between Electronic-, Ambient-, Industrial-, Glitch-, Experimental- and Cinematographic music. I forgot to mention some IDM treatments so in the end you get a pretty diversified opus.
+ + + : I think it’s a challenge to hold on your influences while never repeating yourself. That’s precisely what this album stands for. Tangent has created their very own style, this album being more focused on dreamy, Experimental passages accomplished with dark- and Industrial sound treatments while driven by slow, broken rhythm patterns. I like the progression of the tracklist, the last part of the album becoming more ‘danceable’ and I especially recommend listening to the title track. I also have to mention “Errors Of Conclusion”, which is more into Industrial experimentation, but also a great last cut to a fascinating and diversified work.
– – – : This is the kind of album, which you’ve to listen to a few times before you can get into it.
Conclusion: Tangent creates the illusion to compose music from an imaginary outer-space sonic lab.
Best songs: “Evolutionary Cycles”, “Errors Of Conclusion”, “Empty Waves”, “The Origin Of Structures”.
Rate: 7½.
Artist: https://musictangent.wordpress.com / www.facebook.com/musictangent
Label: https://n5md.com / www.facebook.com/n5Mafia
About Tangent
Tangent is the Dutch duo of drummer and sound designer Ralph van Reijendam and vocalist and sound engineer Robbert Kok. Discogs lists a self-released promo album “I” (2012), the debut “1mk2” on Mindtrick Records (2013) and “Transience” on the US label Tympanik Audio (14 June 2014). The duo then moved to n5MD for “Collapsing Horizons” (16 September 2016) and “Approaching Complexity” (5 October 2018). Tangent also appears on the Mindtrick compilations “Frequencies Of The Mind II” and “III” and on the n5MD anniversary set “Twenty Years Away” (2020).
“Evolutionary Cycles” was released by n5MD on 12 March 2021 as an LP limited to 200 copies and as a download. The eight tracks are “The Origin Of Structures”, “Imminent Transformation”, “Empty Waves”, “The Appearance Of Forms”, “Isolated Mechanisms”, “Evolutionary Cycles”, “Unrealistic, Unrestrained” and “Errors Of Conclusion”. Tangent created all sounds and music and mastered the album; Robbert Kok made the art and Mike Cadoo the typography.
The limited minidisc release “Acquiesce” followed on 5 November 2021 and the album “Presence Reverts To Absence” on 14 April 2023, both on n5MD, where the duo also contributed a remix to the 2023 collection “Reflections/Revisited”. “Evolutionary Cycles” is the sixth Tangent album and its first Side-Line review.
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