Audiopile Review: After a few releases on labels like Blackest Ever Black and AD93, the artist formerly known as тпсб adopts a new moniker, Firnis DC, and slides in nicely to the slowly growing Felt Records crew. Certainly comparable to the recent albums from Civilistjävel! that have popped up on Felt, if only in spirit of forgoing rigid genre constructs in favour of conjuring bedroom magick à la Coil. Firnis der Civilisation is a side-winding journey full of surprising moves, refusing to rest in any space for long. From dub-wise and glassy glitch, folkloric drone enchantment and playful IDM adjacent bliss-outs, everything here feels just a bit woozy and pitched at an off-centre speed. Another strong addition to Felt Records!

Firnis DC lands on Perko’s FELT imprint with Firnis der Civilisation, an eponymous collection of 9 tracks that transmit the enigmatic meditations of its author; discordant trudges of twilight romanticism from pastures far beyond.

The uncommon threads that bind FELT intersect neatly at Firnis DC. Their previous outings as тпсб, for Blackest Ever Black, Climate of Fear and AD93, and a pair of The News Cycle releases, were cult hits of uncanny ambient techno and jungle volleys interpreted through lenses of outsider electronics. A snug fit, in other words, for Perko’s unpredictable stable.

On Firnis der Civilisation, we find things paired back further than before. Its 9 tracks play out like beatless symphonies of wayward folk music who’s basement transmissions have been intercepted from the ether; a stirring limbo of grotty emotions that inspire and conflict in equal measure. Tracks offer brief portals into zones of sampladelic oddities, haunted vocals and scatty euphoria that is collectively driven by an (un)willingness to straddle familiar pastures. By the time you reach its finale gut-punch of Dreifach Fiktierung’s twitching breakcore and Innozenz Jahr funk rollage, you are offered a light at the end of a rather odd tunnel that you never quite understood how you got there in the first place.