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Fluxion, “Parallel Moves” (Vibrant Music, 2021)

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As far as I am concerned, Konstantinos Soublis earned a lifetime pass as dub techno royalty with his early Chain Reaction work (the likes of which enjoyed a well-deserved renaissance when Type reissued Vibrant Forms in 2013). Much like fellow visionary Moritz von Oswald, however, Soublis has a creatively restless spirit that has led him in a number of different directions since that scene’s late ’90s/early ’00s golden age came to an end. While I cannot say that I have been a fan of all of Fluxion’s various detours over the years, Soublis’s unpredictably hit-or-miss discography has continued to surprise me with a legitimate hit every few years. 

In fact, Fluxion has been in unusually fine form recently and that upswing seems to have culminated in this album, which is unexpectedly one of the most uniformly strong and inspired releases in the project’s entire oeuvre. Part of that success is likely due to Soublis’s decision to take his vision in a more intimate and inwardly inspired direction (the album was inspired by “real life moments, people, expectations, joy, dreams and disappointments”), but the primary appeal of Parallel Moves is that his new inspirations manifested themselves in quite a killer batch of unusually sensual, soulful, and melodic songs. To my ears, this is a very strong contender for the best Fluxion album ever released.

At its core, Parallel Moves still very much feels like a Fluxion album, as the usual dub techno elements are all in place (propulsive grooves, dub-wise production shadings, a fondness for minimalism, and a warm, repeating pulse), but it also feels elevated in a way that is difficult to pin down. I have seen it described as jazz-tinged and “almost balearic,” however, and that seems reasonably accurate: it certainly feels breezy and tropical at times, yet is also feels like a lot of other things as well. 

The deeper transformation seems to lie in the execution rather than the style, as the best songs feel organic, nuanced, and casually effortless in the best way possible. For example, the album’s zenith is “Orange Sky,” which is essentially just a stomping, off-kilter beat, a simple two-chord pulse, and some warm, bleary drones, yet the magic lies in the details and the dynamics (finger snaps, flickers of spectral guitar, etc.). Moreover, Soublis somehow makes it all feel effortless. It feels a bit like the heavily reggae-influenced dub techno of Rhythm & Sound, yet this is one of the rare instances where someone can match that celebrated project in quality, as Soublis steers that aesthetic into more sun-dappled territory with impressive lightness of touch and no loss of depth.

The title piece is even closer to the classic R&S sound at first, but the austere reggae groove proves to be merely the foundation for a smokily beautiful and soulful electric piano melody. And it only gets better from there, as an echoey dub breakdown steadily builds into a thumping and vaguely noirish finale. Elsewhere, “Correlation” beautifully transforms a warmly bittersweet synth reverie into a surprisingly sensual and thumping house banger, while “In Limbo” takes that four-on-the-floor kick drum into neon-lit noir-jazz territory (if Nicolas Winding Refn made a hyper-stylized Raymond Chandler adaptation with lots of slow-motion night driving scenes, this would absolutely be the appropriate soundtrack). “Blue and Yellow” is another highlight, as what feels like an improvised vamp steadily evolves into a nuanced, shapeshifting juggernaut that seems like it would have only continued to get better and better if it had been allowed to extend for the entire album. 

Naturally, there are plenty of other excellent grooves and delightful stylistic twists among the remaining pieces, as Soublis rarely (if ever) misses the mark here. More than that, however, he regularly blows up the goddamn mark with a seemingly supernatural gift for subtly incorporating new elements at precisely the right time to make a song catch fire. I have had this album in heavy rotation for months and I have yet to start growing tired of it, as there is a seemingly endless host of details and shadings to newly appreciate with each listen. Parallel Moves is instantly canonical dub techno.

Samples can be found here.

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Fluxion, “Vibrant Forms” (Chain Reaction (1999)/Type(2013))

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One of my favorite reissues of 2012 was Porter Ricks’ Biokinetics, a maddeningly hard-to-get dub techno classic from Chain Reaction’s golden age. Unbeknownst to me, that album was apparently just the beginning of a larger project, as Type is back with yet another landmark reissue from Basic Channel’s influential imprint. While Vibrant Forms is not quite as distinctive or intermittently amazing as Biokinetics, it compensates by being consistently excellent from start to finish.

Fluxion is one of the guises of Greek producer Konstantinos Soublis, who is still fairly active on Denmark’s Echocord label. This particular compilation, however, is a collection of some of his earliest work, though not a very comprehensive one. In fact, it only includes Fluxion’s debut single (1998’s Lark/Atlos) and 1999’s Largo EP, though both the 1999 original and this reissue toss in a couple of short bonus tracks as well (“Lapses” and “Cyclops Machine”).

Some of Fluxion’s other releases from the same period are actually compiled on a second volume of Vibrant Forms, but that one remains woefully out-of-print and expensive for the time being (Chain Reaction’s signature metal boxes being both collectible and amusingly prone to damaging their contents). I certainly hope to be able to hear the rest of those songs someday to get a more complete picture of Soublis’ early creative flurry, but it is easy to see why Type was so thrilled to put out this first volume by itself (they hail it as a “legendary masterpiece”). Certainly, more Fluxion would be nice, but this volume beautifully embodies the electronic music zeitgeist of the era just fine by itself: this is as archetypal as dub techno can possibly be.

Of course, the line separating “archetypal” and “faceless” is quite a blurry one, which is perhaps why Soublis’ name is not as well-known as it probably should be. Vibrant Forms is simply the sound of someone who understood dub techno on a deep and intuitive level and set about putting all of its requisite components together in exactly the right way at exactly the right time. As a result, nearly all of these ten songs adhere to the same template: a steady 4/4 kick-drum thump, a hazy/echo-ey synth motif, a simple bass line, and constant subtle additions and subtractions to the beat. The overall effect is like a highly precise machine creating a mesmerizing, complex rhythm that never stops evolving, but the more mechanized/inhuman aspect of Fluxion is somewhat balanced out by the woozily warm and blurry synth chords (though that endlessly repeats as well).

Normally, such incredible similarity between pieces would make for a punishingly redundant and tedious album or at least prevent me from have much of a preference for any particular song, but I do not have that problem at all with Vibrant Forms. The reason for that is that I would be perfectly happy if any one of these songs went on for the duration of the entire album, as all of beauty lies within the details and constant small changes: shifts in cymbal patterns, pops and hisses, slight variations in the sound of the synth, etc. While the bass drum thump rarely (if ever) changes, the overall pulse never stops changing. Given that, the best songs often tend to be the ones that go on the longest, though my favorites (the almost indistinguishable “Largo” and “Hiatus”) only clock in at around 7- or 8-minutes. Conversely, the album’s weakest songs are simply those that end too soon, like the otherwise excellent 2-minute “Lapses.”

Since Konstantinosis not actually a machine, he does occasionally stray a bit from his formula from time to time. In fact, unexpected detours start to become the norm as the album gets closer and closer to the end. One of the more divergent examples is “Pendoulous,” which incorporates a prominent bass line and replaces the standard-issue chord stabs with rippling, murky dissonance. An even more dramatic aberration is “Influx,” which completely eschews a beat in favor of surprisingly harsh and sizzle-heavy synth washes. My favorite of Fluxion’s variations, however, is the closing “Opaque,” which creates a hypnotic push-pull pulse with something that sounds like treated machine-noise.

The word “masterpiece” is woefully misused and I probably would not have declared Vibrant Forms to be one just a few short years ago, but I have recently expanded my definition of brilliance to include peerless craftsmanship rather than just bold vision. Given that, this album is at the very least a legitimate, unqualified masterpiece of its genre, as it could not possibly be more elegantly executed (or more consistent quality-wise). If Vibrant Forms can be said to have a flaw, it is actually that it is too flawless: Soublis’ skill in achieving machine-like, trance-inducing perfection left absolutely no room for any distinct personality to come through. That seems to have been precisely the point though.

Listen here.