HOAVI - Architectonics

Hoavi is the alias of Russian producer Kirill Vasin, already well known on the scene for his liquid excursions between ambient techno landscapes and the dreamlike terrain of IDM. With "Architectonics", out on Peak Oil, he renews his sonic vocabulary in a poetics born from the rhythmic forms of gamelan. It's a result that stems from the need to broaden his stylistic horizons and integrate a more pronounced percussive presence into them. Using a phone and a contact microphone, Vasin captured every sound with harmonic depth, tapping on tables, glasses and metal objects to build a personal archive to transpose and shape on the computer. That tradition has always been a passion for the artist, not some passing interest of recent times; already fluent in its grammar, Hoavi manages to translate the intrinsic resonances of Indonesian music to open a threshold into altered states of perception.

This is not a dutiful tribute to Javanese tradition, nor does it aim to be: it's rather a trigger for building polyrhythms and a radically new language for the artist. Far from the ethereal haze of his previous records, what perhaps remains is the tendency toward complex layering of an ever-shifting rhythm, but achieved through diametrically opposed sound materials and aesthetic intentions. Building a tactile experience, in which the metallic harmonics of every sound can be perceived, the record finds its structure on solid ambient-dub foundations, most of the time barely perceptible on the material surface but tangible through the layer of sub-frequencies that make the result opaque and soft. It is not, then, a world-music record, but one that draws on ancient music to capture a stark, tribal spirituality, as if playing East Asian metallophones inside an anechoic chamber.

The eleven episodes of the work form an imaginary world that combines ancient and future, geographically remote elements and even a jazz saxophone weaving phrases somewhere between meditative and melancholy. The percussive elements sometimes live within their own rhythmic idiom, at other times through spatio-temporal manipulations of electroacoustics, in an account that, track after track, veers towards the club. Peak Oil is certainly no stranger to gifting us such refined musical moments, whether courtesy of artists like Topdown Dialectic or Purelink, but it proves above all to be the perfect home for Vasin's sonic research. What changes, above all, is the temperature: if that music was born in hot, humid contexts, Vasin's take is almost cold. Positioning itself as a Shackleton for sub-zero temperatures, Hoavi gives us one of the finest electronic moments of recent times.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

31/05/2026