This is an great little electronic album on the small, independent Greek label Low Impedence. Labels like this can certainly throw up some gems from time to time, and that’s certainly the case with Kamotek’s Loftway.

Not much is known about the artist, but the content will definitely appeal to Mike Paradinas fans, especially his Kid Spatula project, as Loftway is an excellent record, brimming with crisp breakbeats, cheeky melodies and experimental rhythms – with an overriding sense of the absurd, yet occasionally dipping into darker climbs.

Standout tracks include Midnight AfroBeaver, of which the Low Impedence website describes as “Donkey Kong on crack throwing barrels at Darth Vader‿. I couldn’t have put it better myself – the track will provide contemporary fun for 80s computer game enthusiasts. Then there are tracks like Darlimond – very Aphex Twin influenced – with stuttering beats, spliced vocals and charming ambient overtones.

Locksmith Blockade is another corker, Kamotek seems to be able to flit between recording happy-go-lucky electronica and harder, breakbeat-driven gems with ease – the squelchy, powerful beats on this track are really involving and there’s plenty of generous intricate sampling swirling around the track. Crescendo Sheep is magnificent, with darker synth layers tunefully bedded beneath splattered loops and playful sheep samples – there’s also some really nice ambient synth lines at work too.

Meanwhile, tracks such as Loving Loo, Generation Egg, and Cosmodial continue Kamotek’s liking for tech-noir microchip melodies. Multi Jazz is another corker – with more bizarre sampling and lashings of flatulent Atari/Amiga chiptunes. Vlakash verges on Squarepusher stupidity, with its splatter-gun beats and zany sampling techniques – but it’s certainly not derivative, just originial and fun.

It’s virtually impossible to dislike the playful nature of Loftway, and I have nothing but admiration for Kamotek’s excellent production values and involving beats, melodies and rhythms. It’s certainly my favourite IDM album of the year, so don’t miss out.

Initially, the hour-long Loftway sounds like it might end up being nothing more than an overstuffed and fragmented collection of tracks channel-surfing through the usual spectrum of electronic styles (jungle, drum & bass, glitch, hyper-jazz, electronica, breakcore, hip-hop, robot pop): hammering beats, fat bass synths, arcade splashes and bleeps, convulsive rhythms, and chopped voice samples stream through seventeen rambunctious tracks. But along the way, Kamotek drops some truly innovative material that elevates the album above similarly formatted discs. “Darlimond” memorably merges warm spasmodic synth tomfoolery, sliced voices, and tight drill’n’bass beats into a robust confection. With its splayed rhythms of arcade and factory noise, “Loving Loo” initiates an entirely new genre (‘metal tribal’) while “Velocymbal” merges choking voice slices with blistered funk and hip-hop rhythms. Kamotek’s warped sensibility (evidenced by song titles like “Midnight AfroBeaver”) is also welcome in a genre that can take itself too seriously. Contrary to the computer-generated voice intro to the album (“Hello, this album sucks but please give it a listen before you throw it away”), Loftway more than earns its right to multiple listens. In fact, the label’s characterization of Loftway as “Donkey Kong on crack throwing barrels at Darth Vader” is pretty much on target.

‘Loftway’ is Greek IDM / electro producer John Dousk’s debut album offering as Kamotek, and arrives on the fledgling Lo Impedance Recordings imprint as a first salvo alongside two EP releases by other Greek artists. Despite its floaty, diaphanous-sounding title, ‘Loftway’ shows Dousk leaning predominantly towards drilling breakbeat-fuelled IDM excursions reminiscent of AFX, best typified by ‘Darlimond’s icy fusion of melancholic Plaid-esque synth atmospheres and hammering, hyper-processed rhythms.

While it’s impossible to ignore the over-familiarity of much of the territory covered here, standout moments here such as spacious Detroit techno moment ‘Generation Egg’ and closing track ‘Pilgrin Penguim’s eerie distorted chanting and slow beats show that Dousk’s at his best when he keeps it simple, without trying to shoehorn too many ideas in at once. ‘Crescendo Sheep’ meanwhile comes across like some fusion of BOC and John Carpenter, stabbing rhythmic programming counterpointing a deep backdrop of ambient synth tones in one of the most evocative offerings here. At 17 tracks over 58 minutes, the sense that trimming things back slightly might have resulted in a less ‘fragmented’ listening experience creeps in, but despite these considerations ‘Loftway’ is a strong, ambitious first offering from Dousk as Kamotek.

John Dousk has a sense of humor about his work. Kamotek’s Loftway is a record well at home in the digitized 21st century, filled with squirts of 8-bit noise, vocal chirps and Speak ‘n’ Spell dictation, overly complicated drum programming and the winsome melodies that all bedroom programmers seem to be able to eke out of their analog machinery. But what keeps a smile on my face as I listen to the record is the tiny inflections and gilding that Dousk layers on the work.

A breathless soprano, digitally cut into a quavering echo, dances with chipmunk singers against a groaning drum ‘n’ bass beat in “Locksmith Blockade” while “Midnight AfroBeaver” whistles with 8-bit cheerfulness, singing a delirious song of pixilated mushroom munching and dinosaur jumping. “Darlimond” is filled with analog tones that rise like smoke signals while a computerized voice intones number sequences over a tight bit of drum programming. It’s like a modern day Numbers Station transmission where the background is a squiggle of digitized music that also hides a numerical pattern (obtuse to all but the most plugged-in data-head). “Feeble” is anything but; it’s a wash of static-edged sound, swirling synths, and spastic drums—the sort of texturized confusion that dances on the edge of chaos.

“Velocymbal” reminds me of Amon Tobin’s Out From Out Where; it swarms with lovely tones while big drums punctuate the percussion and a sliced vocal track hiccups like a funk singer hopped up on a sparkling water. A grizzled bluesman is sampled for the analog pastorale “Generation Egg,” a syrupy tune of synthesizer tremolos and airy whooshes. The vocal sample chirrups like a fat robin on a branch outside the studio window. “Multi-Jazz” is the sort of scatter-phonic “free” jazz that only Squarepusher and the like can imagine—piano, drum kit, singer caught mid-scat, percussion and double bass are sampled, reversed, looped and dubbed into a schizophrenic rendition of a lounge act standard. “Crescendo Sheep,” sounding like a grittier Arovane, wraps warped beats around a vaporous PA recording and a few melancholic strings.

Loftway is a record which grows richer the further you delve into it. While the opening tracks seem content to squirt water like playful dolphins at the marina, the later tracks are more like a deeper trip into the belly of the aquarium where you can get lost in the dazzling display of color and light from the undersea exhibits. Dousk has a well-developed sense of self-referential satire about his work that can sometimes obscure the emotional texture of his work. Or maybe he’s just being coy. Either way, there is depth here worth diving for. Very nice.

This third release on Greece’s Low Impedence Recordings has convinced me that this newcomer label is one to pay attention to. Kamotek, a DJ and Producer, is the most freakishly fantastic thing to reside in my iPod in recent months. Loftway starts out relatively normal and at the end of the song, Victoria (her name according to my Mac) says, “Hello, this album sucks, but please give it a listen before you throw it out.” “Midnight AfroBeaver” increases the mania with Tokyo pop-kitsch, then Kamotek settles down with funky IDM in “Bye Bye Domain.” It first comes off like a compilation of random artists providing their best works, but after many listens the common theme is visible and an understanding of the schitzophrenic technoid qualities of Kamotek are easier to warm up to. “Darlimond” is crisp and delicate blending drum’n’bass with IDM, the perfect marriage of two genres that are not always strong enough on their own. Favorites on Loftway include, “Locksmith Blockade,” “Crescendo Sheep,” and “Generation Egg.” – all mixing hints of house music, vintage industrial and funk. Kamotek is clearly a musician who is having fun with what he does and flawlessly pulls off quaint beauty mixed with madness of children’s anime music.