The debut release of TM is a quite interesting visit through industrial fields. Starting with a kind of bombastic piece in the vein of The Swans they move into a next piece, which is quite elaborated. I still like the atmosphere running through this cut. Another interesting composition is the darker “Suspicious‿ where they again show a will to avoid simple repetitive structures and other improvisations. It’s a damn pity that this song was interrupted after more or less 3‿. Well, it’s regrettable that this release only contains 5 tracks, but it’s for sure a good debut!

Athenian producer Kostas Karamitas delves into dark and fearsome territory with his debut Backbone EP; the latest in a bunch of impressive releases from Greek experimental imprint Low Impedance. Working under the production guise of Tokyo Mask, Karamitas’ musical excursions represent something equally formless and frightening, brimming with ominous undertones and brooding sinisterisms. From the first track, Backbone sees Karamitas fashion a visceral, abrasive netherworld of haunting synth phases, industrial-strength beats, nightmarish sonic scapes and drone traversals. But despite his sound’s primal qualities – its grinding power and stinging claustrophobia – a certain penetrable, loose, even strangely ambient aesthetic remains ever-present, with each listen granting a new, slightly tilted perspective. Indeed, while angular and cryptic, dense and paranoid, Tokyo Mask’s lurching, synthetic rhythms and amorphous structures suggest Backbone to be a thing of wonder as much as it is a thing of fear.

Tokyo Mask’s Backbone is an entirely different animal altogether. If Pridon emphasizes IDM brightness, Tokyo Mask embraces claustrophobic sludgecore. The disc first alternates two longer tracks with nightmarish vignettes and then crowns it with a massive epic. “Valveworm‿ establishes the mood with dubby, industrial-strength hip-hop that slowly grows louder, denser, and more haunted as layers of grime, distressed whistles, and agonized groans accumulate. “Slowly Backwards‿ is likewise foreboding, with stumbling beats lurching through the song’s center surrounded by disembodied voices. A tsunami of bulldozing beat crunch and seething squalls dominates the ten-minute closer “Semantic Spook‿ until the beats drop out in its last moments, exposing waves of feedback fuzz and strangulated voices—an incredible though not necessarily pleasant listen.

Tokyo Mask is the first out of the gates for Greece-based label, Low Impedance, and Backbone hurtles onto the scene with a spine-rattling impact. Backbone will shatter yours, frankly, if your low-end can handle it; but it will crush you slowly. Guttural beats growl while sludge-laden vocal effects struggle to break free of the mire. Echoes of Scorn, Mothboy and Godflesh even surge through Tokyo Mask, but there’s both more and less here: more static, less movement.

“Valveworm” growls and leers, hulking in the shadows and floating on a bed of compressed air. Beats lumber with room-staggering intensity and tiny birds - flush like stars - squirt past, micro-notes cast off as electricity from the lurching monolith. “Slowly Backward” warps in reverse, back-masking and inverted loops lend menace to theatrical washes of phantom chorals. Like Scorn turned inside out, “Slowly Backwards” seems like it is leaving the room instead of entering and, yet, I’m not feeling any more secure in the fact the monster is retreating versus approaching. I don’t know where it is going, nor does its locomotion make sense to me. And, as Tokyo Mask, flirts with dreadful silences, the atmosphere is more oppressive and creepy. “Suspicous” moans with whale song, processed wails of cetacean fury that peak and fade like the passage of a tsunami wave. “Semantic Spook” chews through ten minutes of tape, coruscating like a fusion between Pelican and Scorn—sludge beats dragging down doom-tuned guitars into a tar pit of endless echoes. Backbone feels like lead weights sunk into your intestines. Excellent.