I find it hard to believe anyone reading this site is not at least somewhat familiar with the work of Matthew Dear. His records have been both critical and commercial successes, resulting in bona-fide classics under multiple monikers (Jabberjaw’s “Girlfriend” and “EP2″ under his birth name spring to mind immediately). 2008, however, was a disappointing year for Matthew Dear fans, and March’s “Love Letters” as False offered little reprieve. It was as if all Dear’s once-varied identities had simmered down to a similar, stagnant “minimal” sound. With the resurrection of Audion and a series of EPs building up to a full-length album, this has changed.

While not the balls-to-the-wall gritty and nasty Audion of “Kisses,” the newest transmissions from Audion have been darker than anything Dear has done in some time. “It’s Full Of Blinding Light”, the first 12″ for the series, seeks to integrate these two Audions, and does so with tremendous results. Easily the best thing he’s has released in some time, “It’s Full Of Blinding Light” proceeds at a sluggish pace, awash with creepy percussion and voices soon assaulted by the loud, grating lasers that have appeared in Audion’s biggest hits. Although it hints at “Mouth to Mouth,” this is a different beast entirely — prime-time brain-melting madness, and Audion at his very best.

Unfortunately, the two tracks on the flip are less memorable. “On My Way To The Center” combines a winding beat with Dear making a mantra of the track’s title, but never reaches the cynosure. “Jukebox Hero” has a similar beat and breaks occasionally for drawn-out groans, but ends too early to have developed into anything exceptional — so early, in fact, I suspected my vinyl copy was misprinted. Ultimately very similar to “Love Letters”, side B serves as a reminder of how thin the membrane between Matthew’s personalities has become. When he’s on form, though, he’s unstoppable, and “It’s Full Of Blinding Light” is so good that, for its duration, I forget the B-sides and am back in 2005 when Matthew Dear was king. Along with the three other digital tracks released so far this year, “It’s Full Of Blinding Light” proves Dear still has it in him; and when he trims the fat, he can still stop you in your tracks.

[BPitch Control]

Ellen Allien’s Sool album was cold and precise, and “Out” stands as a fine example of its poker-faced mood: In its original form, “Out” is resolutely unyielding, the vocals sent shuddering and twisting through reverb, edited into stammering machines. It shares with the music of its producer AGF a distanced delivery, at least on the surface. (AGF’s music often ends up crackling with emotion, but Allien doesn’t surrender to that impulse here.) In another publication, I noted that Allien’s return to such minimal climes has her working against the tide, and indeed “Out” may well be more comfortable nestled among the inquisitive, near-academic glitch that characterized the early ‘00s output on Mille Plateaux. But that’s also where its great strength lies, in its embrace of essence with each component bare and clinical, from the dull thud of the kick, to the ringing, high-pitched tones that briefly flicker toward the end.

New BPitch recruit Thomas Muller takes on one of the remixes: it’s sympathetic to the emptiness characterizing the original, but it’s more propulsive and features some swooping, dramatic synth that’s a little too gestural for its own good. Much better are the stretches where he lets his remix slowly unfold, dotting these periods with glassy pings and brief bursts of escaping gas. Audion aka Matthew Dear tackles “Out” on the other side of the 12″. Now that Dear’s solo records have lost their touch, you’ve pretty much got to lean on Audion for good music from the guy, and here he’s on strong form. It’s easy to forget how good Dear can be at teasing the ears, and on his “Out For Infants” mix, he patiently establishes a low-level rhythm from hollow, woody knocks and thuds and freeze-dried handclaps, before bringing a queasy, mutant loop into earshot at the four-minute mark. From there it’s all on, as Dear wrings the loop dry, stretching it across the rhythm, twisting and shaking it out, before drenching it in ever-ascending, queered electronic noise. Like the best Audion, it’s strangely erotic, even (or perhaps especially) as the noise tries to violate the structure of the rhythm.

[BAR25]

German producer and BAR25′s most frequent contributor, Matt John, has quite a knack for evoking uneasy yet familiar feelings with his sound design. In “Hawaii You,” his hit collaboration with Ricardo Villalobos, it was that brief clunk of melodic color between foreign vocal samples — a computer alerting its user of a finished download. In the crowded house-pleaser, “Soulkaramba,” the lucid piano progression and orchestral swells anchored the frantically crammed track to more “traditional music.” “Olga Dancekowski,” John’s latest, is by contrast a relatively straightforward dance floor track; except this club seems to be taking a tumble through someone’s intestines. Rising from the undulating pattern is an even more seasick melody, somehow reminiscent of a delightfully unconvincing synth trombone and the adults from the Peanuts cartoon. The end result is surprisingly memorable and rave-friendly, even if its peculiar timbres have you looking over your shoulder while shaking it out.

Matthew Dear (as Audion) comes at “Olga” as if he were editing one of his own tracks during a live show. His remix uses bits of his own vocal utterances, ramped up percussion and a nagging synth vamp for off the cuff urgency. Dear also opts to repeat the original’s soliloquy himself, then snares it in his sampler and affects it beyond recognizability. It’s a tactic he’s quite fond of employing in his live PA’s and it has the same dizzying effect here. Fans accustomed to a more precise sound from Dear might but put off by its reckless construction, but more likely his remix of “Olga Dancekowski” will put them on the dance floor with more important matters at hand.