Drumsolo's Delight

On his second outing as Strategy, West Coast DJ and multi-instrumentalist Paul Dicklow moves toward a structured thematic that combines live dub mixology, super digitronic spatial enhancement, and a shimmering, nearly invisible sense of conscious ambience to produce a recording more subtle but simultaneously present than its predecessor, Strut. "Cascadian Night," is a an exercise in hissy glissando that creates the aura of barely discernible space before opening onto the slightly more physical laptop emptiness of "Super She Wolf Inna City." But it is on the title track that dub-ology, spectral techno, and ambient bliss caress and create a mimetic chill groove together. As the slippery techno fades from the fore, and overlaid laptop beats and percolating electronic and organic polyrhythmic ideas enter, the entire track becomes something other, fully layered, dense in its vastness yet decidedly non-physical in its language and presence. When the synth pop keyboards emanate from the mix, seemingly out of the blue, the listener is dislocated enough to just abandon the notion of actual listening to the totality of experiential connection. And so it goes, elemental sounds and rhythms couple, separate, undulate, and transform themselves into others, circulating throughout the nocturnal bliss of this set that is as much a delight as it is a cipher.