Shop - Ate23 – Mercy Killings (IC041)

Mercy Killings, the debut album from Scandinavian producer Dan Stielow under the alias Ate23, stands as the consolidated artistic statement of a career spanning over three decades. Far from being a novice work, this project is the crystallization of a vast journey through music production—a document in which he refines and freely fuses the essences of every sonic front he has explored.

The choice of the alias Ate23 for this release appears to demarcate a specific creative territory, a distinct channel within his prolific trajectory. From this space, Stielow operates with absolute freedom, resulting in a profoundly heterogeneous album. The diversity, however, is not chaotic but organic and deliberate, showcasing the steady hand of a creator who understands the fundamentals of every genre he touches and transcends them to build something personal.

The amalgamation of influences is as broad as it is cohesive. The electronic foundation is palpable, seamlessly blending with experimental textures. Rhythmic noise and techno contribute industrial pulses and driving rhythms, alongside acid lines that recall analog rawness. These moments of high energy coexist, quite boldly, with passages of deep, passive drone, where time dissolves into static, atmospheric soundscapes. It is precisely within this contrast that much of the album’s power resides, in the tension between the rhythmic and the abstract, the aggressive and the contemplative.