INDOPAN - In Opulence

Under other aliases, such as Baz Ludzha and The Cyclist, Northern Irish producer Andrew Morrison has honed what he himself calls “tape throb”: a sort of lysergic, heavily lo-fi tech-house, with grainy basslines distorted beyond belief in a dirty, vital electronic tremor, meant to be consumed on a degradable format like – appropriately enough – the cassettes of old. But it's under the name Indopan that Morrison straightens his bow tie to transform into an alien, elegant DJ, ready to slip away amid insistent beats and jazzy flourishes, wrapped in an arsenal of goodies and gadgets for nerds bought especially for the occasion – including, among others, a Marsh UDS, a contraption produced by the Soviet Union in the Eighties.

At first, the second album under the Indopan name lives up to its title and its romantic cover image: “In Opulence” covers a generous hour of saturated, soft and viscous textures, enveloping the listener like a leather glove in a smoky nightclub. But be warned, because Morrison's strictly DIY approach, and by extension that of the releasing label 100% Silk, always conceals a subversive, out-of-place aura.

The best moment to unpack the heart of the work comes with the opener "Basslines For What", a brisk house romp that at a certain point morphs into a hypnotic, Arabic-tinged sabbath without losing its step, displaying innate good taste and solid technical skill. Toward the close, instead, it's worth following the lingering rhythmic chanting of "Sky Scratches", underscored by inconclusive touches of electric piano, and the beatless shipwreck of "Antigreed", led by vocalist Elaine Howley like a ballad for other galaxies.

It's between these extremes that Indopan steers a shifting, heterogeneous listen, whether it's the obsessive "Indopan's Break Down", the witty "Moody Wurlis" (possibly dedicated to a Wurlitzer 206A among his new acquisitions), or Elaine's other vocal contribution on "Shore Ellipsis", a dreamy trance that could pass for the work of fellow Georgian Gacha. It's rather good when "Marshman" slows into nocturnal sophisti-jazz arrangements, only to quietly set off again on the wings of a sourish beat. The soothing interlude "Beats Per Breath" offers a genuine moment to catch one's breath, before things pick up again with "Wanna Go Back" and its blues samples in the vein of St Germain, and the oblique hypnagogic memories of "Hippity".

It's the full eight minutes of "The Whip" that capture the extremes of a work living in the middle ground of dance music, and not only that - now rounded, pulsing house, then jittery, roughed-up techno, even a bloodless ambient coda to lighten the legs and let the mind drift elsewhere.

"In Opulence" is thus a soft, sophisticated album, but also an unstable and paranoid one, romantic and rebellious, a kind of younger, sharper-dressed companion to the more psychedelic debut "Yupana" released a couple of years ago. Indopan still has a swift, precise hand, with which to illustrate, in his own way, what independent electronic music can be in this decade of the 2020s.

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18/06/2025