300 copies. Hans Dens returns with his second vinyl offering on Aguirre Records, delivering more synthcrapings and zonked adventures in lo-fi music under his Innercity moniker. Following up his 7-inch release on NNA Tapes and an LP on Release The Bats, Terrestreality sees Dens continuing to search and destroy conventional electronic music boundaries with his distinctive approach to damaged audio and otherworldly synthesis. The Belgian synthscaper and anti-musician has established himself as a unique voice within the underground experimental scene, positioning Terrestreality as a blown-out techno odyssey that scrambles the coordinates between Krautrock, minimal synth music, and Belgian beats. The album hovers in what has been described as "an illusory interzone of self-organising synth music and almost unconsciously programmed arrangements," creating a sonic environment where time becomes infinitive and conventional structures dissolve.
Recorded between April and June 2011, Terrestreality spreads loads of damaged audio and otherworldly synth bubbles across 12 tracks, each bearing Dens' characteristic blend of hypnagogic drift and lo-fi experimentation. The album's opening track, "The Lil Green Builders Carry On," immediately establishes the record's fractured aesthetic, while "Opiate Vague" features vocals by Bram Devens of Ignatz, creating what reviewers have described as sounding "somewhere between Hype Williams and Rabih Beani." The album's middle section includes tracks like "Pai Apnap / Pai Non," which evokes comparisons to Motion Sickness of Time Travel "on a bad trip," alongside "Grind At Heart" with its submerged murk and decay. As the listener progresses through the album, the journey becomes increasingly fractal, with shorter tracks morphing from humid cyber-tropical simulations to infernal dream noise and chewed techno fragments.
Dens' approach to electronic music places him firmly within the Belgian underground alongside acts like Orphan Fairytale and Dolphins Into The Future, yet his work brings a more dystopian and bleak sensibility to the table. His monotonous and rhythmic set of sounds creates what he describes as environments where "sound slowly takes over the time dimension which is uncovered unreal," necessitating adaptation to "some kind of space-sound reality environment with no chronological order of events." The album's latter half continues this exploration of temporal displacement and sonic decay, with tracks bearing evocative titles such as "The Fruits Have Left Your Baskets And Gone Home To Feed The Apes" and "Cross Stone-Desert 23 Eagle-Headed And Feathered Humanoid Skeletons Head For Luna Lake." These extended titles reflect Dens' interest in creating narrative frameworks for his abstract electronic compositions, suggesting stories and environments that exist beyond conventional musical structures.
The album concludes with "The Eschaton Is Being Reset," a title that encapsulates the apocalyptic and transformative themes running throughout Terrestreality. This closing statement positions the album as both an ending and a beginning, a reset of musical and temporal coordinates that leaves listeners in a transformed sonic landscape. Terrestreality was mastered by Fear Falls Burning, whose expertise in handling experimental electronic music ensures that Dens' damaged audio maintains its integrity while achieving maximum impact on vinyl. The mastering preserves the album's characteristic lo-fi aesthetic while enhancing the spatial qualities that make Dens' music so immersive.
All Music By Hans Dens
Vocals on Opiate Vague by Bram Devens
Mastered by Fear Falls Burning
Limited to 300 copies