#4 Feat. Staff Picks in Breaks / Breakbeat / UK Bass

Whos that guy nerding behind a laptop in a French cafe? It might be Gal Tsadok-Hai, working on new beats. Since the Dutch producer moved to Montmartre (Paris), he not only shook up his life but also his modus operandi. While enjoying a cafe-au-lait and ignoring the white noise around him, he worked on his new Perot EP. A new life, a new sound. So, Tsadok-Hai decided to throw all 4x4 beats overboard. Even on Mangue, a track that starts out as a decent enough dark techno track, only to derail into a breakbeat frenzy towards the end. The other four tracks are equally adventurous and playful, with wildly zigzagging beats, rubbery congos and rattling drums. Like Squarepusher being locked up with The Gaslamp Killer and Mr. Oizo. A great EP which takes Tsadok-Hais sound in exciting new directions.

Gal Tsadok-Hai

#38 Top Releases in Breaks / Breakbeat / UK Bass

Whos that guy nerding behind a laptop in a French cafe? It might be Gal Tsadok-Hai, working on new beats. Since the Dutch producer moved to Montmartre (Paris), he not only shook up his life but also his modus operandi. While enjoying a cafe-au-lait and ignoring the white noise around him, he worked on his new Perot EP. A new life, a new sound. So, Tsadok-Hai decided to throw all 4x4 beats overboard. Even on Mangue, a track that starts out as a decent enough dark techno track, only to derail into a breakbeat frenzy towards the end. The other four tracks are equally adventurous and playful, with wildly zigzagging beats, rubbery congos and rattling drums. Like Squarepusher being locked up with The Gaslamp Killer and Mr. Oizo. A great EP which takes Tsadok-Hais sound in exciting new directions.

Gal Tsadok-Hai

#43 Top Releases in Ambient / Experimental

For his debut album To Sit Quietly Where Everything is Moving Fast, Love over Entropy used only one source: a Yamaha DX11 synthesizer. Its a vintage machine from 1987 that was also used by early IDM and techno producers. Working with an artificial constraint unleashed a different kind of creativity, says the The Hague-based musician, who normally does not shy away from elaborate productions. Love over Entropy spent a lot of time working out the correct order of the tracks on the album. I think its important that the story also flows well on a higher level. It was a nice puzzle to solve. Although the Covid pandemic is long behind us, much of the material on this album comes from the days when society was still largely in lockdown. Which explains the title, says Love over Entropy. But it also refers to my distancing myself from the hustle and bustle of the dancefloor. Up until then, I was primarily making dance music. You wont find any kick drums or heavy bass lines on To Sit Quietly Where Everything Is Moving Fast. It is intimate, meditative and often very beautiful ambient music. But not the formless kind that seems to dominate chill-out playlists these days. Tracks like Finnkroken, Tidalene and Rotiriot have a story to tell, with a lot of effort put in to get it just right. To me, making music is mostly about the process. So I will spend many hours working on details that probably nobody will ever notice. Above all, the pastoral melodies stand out, undulating back and forth like foam on the surf. The harmonies are reminiscent of Isan, Boards of Canada and Murcof, while the album also pays homage to the Artificial Intelligence period on Warp Records. According to the Dutch producer, a lot of current ambient music falls short of the original idea, as coined by Brian Eno. Eno once described ambient as music that should be as ignorable as it is interesting, but nowadays it seems to have become as unignorable as it is uninteresting, Love over Entropy says cheekily. Ambient music really is everywhere, with modern production tools often doing the heavy lifting. With To Sit Quietly Where Everything is Moving Fast, the producer hopes to make a difference, simply by raising the bar. Its a journey that can be taken both horizontally and vertically, and hopefully offers comfort. Or as the producer describes it: music that offers a refuge.

Love Over Entropy