Polar Inertia

(This article’s English version was produced with AI-assisted translation)

Polar Inertia is a project born sixteen years ago from the mind of Homāyun Kheradmand, otherwise known as Voiski, who after a lo-fi start on L.I.E.S., a cornerstone label of the outsider house scene of the last decade, gradually shifted towards more elaborate sonic constructions, while always remaining anchored to minimalist hypnosis. An idea that breathes through the side-project Polar Inertia as well, though reshaped around an even narrower sonic and visual world, one that revolves entirely around everything that could evoke, photographically and musically, a landscape of winter storms: as if the end of times were to emerge not through the flames of a suffocating hell, but from a world a hundred degrees below zero.
Listening to this record means diving into an ecosystem of forbidding yet magnetic electronics. Voiski's releases under this moniker all follow a recurring structure: techno excursions of abyssal depth alongside dark ambient passages thick with unease, where monolithic drones offer a cold shelter to a hostile spoken word. That task falls here to the title track, which opens proceedings in what has always been an uncompromisingly rigorous artistic identity, one that also pushes past its own emotional coordinates, becoming more piercing each time.

And this is the exact feeling that emerges from the listening experience, which, in the words of the artist himself, represents the closing chapter of over fifteen years of sonic research. "Frame Dragging" follows the opener and unleashes the apocalypse, reflecting the acceleration that club music has undergone in recent years. But, to be clear: this is not the hardgroove techno of Ben Sims, where speed becomes vital force; nor the recent psychedelic techno scene of names like Loek Frey, where the cyber-tribalism of an ancient civilisation takes shape from a free party legacy. This is, rather, the industrial techno current of the 2010s, the world of Sandwell District, of Regis and Function, taken here to a further level of dread and oppression.
"Frame Dragging" throws open the gates of a glacial abyss, where the extreme velocity of a cybernetic kick at 190 bpm meets biting drones and the futuristic blueprint of a landscape condemned to oblivion. The track runs for twelve minutes, and those that follow are no less demanding: with an average of nine minutes each, Kheradmand deploys his full arsenal.

The result is intense, and calls for ambient passages, quieter only on paper, to counterbalance the tracks aimed at the dancefloor. Across more than a hundred minutes, "Pi" unfolds a narrative arc built from sidereal jolts and cinematic detours that, whatever the starting material, always converge on the same representation of cold and dread. A new piece in the puzzle that occasionally adds something, more often retraces familiar ground, but this time with the sound quality of an electroacoustic master ("Sea Of Data" and the hyperspeed "T_Pkyo").
The shifts are slow and inevitable, every element designed to disorient, to build a claustrophobic, almost unsettling mantra. Just as Mike Parker has carved out his own signature in the crowded minimal techno landscape, with every track immediately recognisable, Polar Inertia has achieved equally compelling results within the conventions of the industrial club. "Hava" unfolds relentlessly for seventeen minutes, with sudden bursts of sound crashing down on a low-frequency system powerful enough to make you lose all sense of self. "Pi" is the sound of an alternative timeline, where tragedy is compressed and stretched across a grey and inhospitable universe.

09/04/2026