Huma – Emergence [Hedonic Reversal]

Hedonic Reversal has greatly increased its activity over the last few months. After remaining practically the whole of 2020 without releasing anything, at the end of the year they returned with much more strength, with a publishing dynamic that has also continued this year.  In just four months, this Barcelona-based label presents us with its fourth album, this time by Huma, its head, who has devised this recording project in his own image and likeness, with a style based on his musical trajectory, on his influence by experimental electronic music and industrial music.

Emergence is a nine-track album with a corrosive sound and an excellent sound treatment. With the first cut, which also gives its name to the release, we can already observe the complexity of its rhythmic structure, as a pattern marks a constant cadence until it dissolves in a tangle of crossed shots. Coherence gives continuity to the first track with a radioactive sonic context and unpredictable rhythmic sequences, and exactly the same can be said of Coalesce and Invariant, third and fourth tracks of the album.

After so much energy and activity, it’s time for reflection with Disruption. We can say a lot about this track, we can say that it lacks rhythm, that it is atmospheric and that it has nothing to do with the first four tracks, but its greatest virtue is that it is strategically placed to give a big change to the album, to divide it in two or to give an end to the first part, since from the sixth track onwards the release takes a different turn.

Recurrence, Irreducible and Synergy are tracks 6, 7 and 8 respectively and, unlike the first four tracks, Huma adds a musicality and harmonic aspect that did not exist before, implying that a more human and beautiful condition can emerge from the same chaos. However, it continues to develop a strident sound and its rhythmic patterns do not abandon the complexity of the earlier tracks. Arising is the ninth and final track and acts as such, as an outro that mixes and processes the high degree of radioactive contamination that has been released with this work.

Release date: February 25th, 2021.