ASC

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

After twenty years of four-to-the-floor, many producers now seem eager to explore new formulas to express an emotional spectrum that, in the end, remains true to itself. This happened recently with Brendon Moeller, who after a career in dub techno chose (successfully) to immerse himself in a bath of minimal DnB. And now it is happening to ASC, alias James Clemens, author of fifty albums released mostly under this moniker, but also through collateral aliases devoted to IDM productions.

Emotion remains the core of his work. It is a sonic fabric in which the ambient subtext surfaces everywhere — even in the densest, most claustrophobic beats. ASC is, in fact, one of the key names of deep techno, that intersection between minimalism, dub and ambient techno aesthetics frequented by figures such as Donato Dozzy, Claudio PRC or J.S. Zeiter. But also of DnB, since this is not the first riddim-oriented move of his career; the four-on-the-floor path seems to have quieted, at least for now. Last year, his collaboration with Aural Imbalance (one of the two minds behind Deep Space Organisms, the seminal ambient progressive project of the nineties) marked the passage towards a more atmospheric take on jungle, expressed here through the legacy of Good Looking Records: it’s impossible not to perceive the imprint of Seba & Lotek ("Say It").

ASC’s is a sensitive reinterpretation of already-traced codes. If nineties drum’n’bass sounded like a message from the future — more so than much current music — James Clemens reshapes those paradigms into an intimate, rarefied and dreamlike refuge ("Eons"): the amen break once again the undisputed protagonist, surrounded by introspective arpeggios, like an Adam F or a Goldie lost in mystical meditations. It is still ambient music, but with a different drum pattern ("Timeslides"). Rhythms, at times, become quiet, perhaps even too much so ("Fear Of The Deep"); elsewhere they shine like a light observed from the ocean depths ("Lightspeed"). The echo of LTJ Bukem resounds in tracks like "Nightvision," which perhaps stands as the album’s gem.

That said, this could still be only a parenthesis, and one day the tireless producer may return to the paths that have always defined him. Few inventions, many statements: each fascinating in its own way, even if, despite their intensity, they don’t add much. But quality is not only in innovation — it also lies in care.

04/07/2025