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Live Review: Douster & Swick Team Up For 'Internet Dreams' EP

18 June 2014 | 11:12 am | Caitlin Medcalf

Internet masters Douster and Swick have teamed up to ultimately create an 8-bit dream.

Try and fit this one on your floppy disk. Internet masters DOUSTER and SWICK have teamed up to ultimately create an 8-bit dream: layers and layers of pad-samples fused with a shit ton of simple synths, and an eclectically fused atmosphere.

‘Internet Dreams’ is the first collaborative effort for the pair, and it’s certainly a conceptually stunning one. Accompanying the release of the EP, the lads have created a hacker-style website in lieu of the scathing time period that was the 90’s. Green “hacker text” (there’s really no other way to describe it) asks you to type numerous commands in, and you can either stream the EP or simply just download it for free.

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The tracks themselves on the EP follow suit with the theme, with titles like ‘56K DESERT CONNECTION’ and ‘HACKERS CONVENTION JAM’. The theme seems to be recurrent, with video game-esque sound sequences taking you away from the typically ideal structures of dance music today.

Fused with multiple layers of Windows 95 error sounds, the ever-haunting AOL dial-up tone, encouraging samples of internet Mum’s and salespeople telling you to “surf the web!” and a haunting beat that feels like it came straight from a factory of some sort, ‘OS WAR III’ opens the EP with this eerie soundscape. The intro to ‘56K DESERT CONNECTION’ sounds like something straight out of Ministry Of Sound’s ‘Sessions Four’, with a snake charmer-esque synth dominating its soundscape.

‘HACKERS CONVENTION JAM’ seems to be the fastest of the lot, displaying the sounds that make up virtual reality (well, they probably would anyway). The synths are introduced, and the track is given a steady melody that reflects the 90’s in every way possible.

A steady beat, a sampled voice championing the phrase “Championship”, static sounds and a sharp percussive melody make up the ‘CHAMPIONSHIP RINGTONE LEAGUE’. Do you dare enter?

‘Internet Dreams’ is innovative. It seems rare in its prowess, i.e. a project not many would even consider undertaking. DOUSTER and SWICK have created a piece that encompasses the ideologies of a society that relies heavily on the nature of computers, and has iconised elements of its uprising in this clever EP.

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