Filmmaker
Screening Plexus
self-released

We’ve been trying to source and champion examples of the current wave of excellent body music currently emanating from South America more explicitly on the site over the past couple of years, but you don’t have to be scouring the most obscure corners of Bandcamp to have tapped into Filmmaker. Over the past four years Colombian producer Faunes Efe has been churning out releases on the likes of Squall and Detriti to broad acclaim, and new record Screening Plexus maintains his run of dark but funky body music which draws influence from a broad range of sources.

Despite a no-frills and generally stripped-down approach, Screening Plexus crams a plethora of styles into its nine tracks. The thudding and bluntly direct kicks of “Third Eyes” are offset nicely by its druggy and hazy synth arpeggios which don’t so much strike notes as they do drift between them like a ghost in a marsh. The icy stabs of “Masked Science” are just the opposite, connoting any number of classic EBM jams, while the muted drones beneath them suggest the same doomy explorations of post-witch house In Death It Ends was tapped into a decade back. Perhaps most importantly, throughout the record Efe constantly keeps the rhythms fresh. Drawing upon two step, classic electro breaks, the expected staccato EBM rhythms, and possibly even jungle at points, Screening Plexus‘ patterns never falls into plodding lockstep.

Speaking of patterns, on last week’s podcast we had some discussion of the distinction between traditional ‘songs’ and generalized dance tropes in industrial adjacent genres. There are styles, moods, figures, phrasings, and riffs on Screening Plexus, but as a composer Efe seems more interested in play, exploration, and temporary harmonies than concrete song structures. It’s a framework which allows him to drift at will into, say, the loose, post-rockish guitar of “Ivory Tower Syndrome” and the cosmic flanges of “Forsaken Dreams”, while maintaining a sense of flow and unity. As with most Filmmaker releases, Screening Plexus is far more akin to a DJ set than a traditional LP.
 
Late last year we were celebrating the new Kontravoid EP for how conversant it was with so many sounds loosely affiliated with EBM without sacrificing dancefloor punch. Filmmaker is one of the other entities who has both adopted a similarly omnivorous approach to body music and been able to create a unique aesthetic within it. Distinctly dark but never dreary, Screening Plexus‘ beats are immediate but keep you guessing.

Buy it.