Amidst the maelstrom of aliases adopted by Detroit’s prodigious and prolific Matthew Dear, AUDION is undoubtedly the grittiest—a dark representation of Dear’s id and a brain undone. The singles Kisses, The Pong, and Just Fucking have earned immense praise for their serrated approach to heavy 4/4 techno, bringing untamed synths and raucous beats into a devastating melange. All three songs appear on the SUCKFISH full-length CD, alongside eight other dancefloor burners that also succeed on a psychedelic listening level. Alternately demonic and playful, much of SUCKFISH rides a wave of raw sexual energy, with pinprick melodies, grimy oscillations, and machinist blasts, playing out like a high-strung psychological drama. With SUCKFISH, Matthew Dear frees the psychic energy from its social underpinnings and allows a new voice to prevail, permitting the music of his birth name to reach further into the electronic pop realms he carved out on 2003’s widely acclaimed Leave Luck to Heaven. By integrating the vital spirit of Detroit techno with a tangible sense of tension and release, AUDION forges an indelible new path for heavy machine music.
