Electric Treatment Free releases a combination of eccentric sounds and ideas that never focus on one specific area on his self-titled debut.
Ottawa-based experimental artist Electric Treatment Free is definitely someone that follows their own direction and will not compromise. This self-titled EP will bend you, willingly or not, in directions you might not have expected to explore and many will find themselves in unfamiliar territory.
Study 4 opens the EP with a pulsating electro build-up that fades in before overtaking your mind and hypnotising you into a state of readiness for what’s to follow. As the sound ebbs and flow, it fades away as a piano-based riff enters the fray to perform more of a steady and satisfying flow that gets intense and complicated before settling down for a brief period of time, then flying off in another crazy direction. It’s apparent from the start that experimentation will be a big part in the EP with Electric Treatment Free content to play around with his own ideas and anything that interests him, solely.
Followed by Andrei’s Bright Day, the craziness ramps up with radio static over a raising vocal sample of a woman saying ‘This is the greatest moment of my life’ before leading into a scream and then sporadic piano. If anything, this minute-long track wakes up the senses but feels too short to provide any real substance. We’re then hit with Brother of Sleep which follows on with more vocal samples amongst a comforting key-based backing track. Once again, it’s a strange piece that feels more of a bridge between tracks than an actual song in its own right.
The last two tracks have a little more substance and are given the time to build into something with more depth. Maths delves into fuzzy, electric guitar-like riffs with a hint of a developing chorus before once again going off on random and adventurous tangents. The EP ends with Fort Smith, settling in with off-key piano before suddenly switching to a brief hit of fast-paced, electric guitar riffs and drums before gently fading out with more ethereal sounds and samples.
Electric Treatment Free is definitely one for experimentation and you’re going to have to open your mind if you want to gain anything from this EP. The constant change of flow can be jarring but there are some good ideas in there amongst all the chaos. It will be interesting to see if a more coherent album could come out of this EP, but at the moment it is an artist finding his sound and deciding in which direction to go.
Score: 2.5/5
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