Earlier this week, French electronic duo Alesia released Alesia.zip, which contains 18 tracks that are unfinished and probably wouldn’t have ever seen the light of day without this compilation. Alesia are best known for the trap banger Bird Machine that they made with DJ Snake. Near the end of 2013, Alesia released an EP called Andrea that showed a change in their sound compared to Bird Machine. This EP showed them experimenting with darker industrial techno and electro along the lines of artists such as Boys Noize or Gesaffelstein.
https://soundcloud.com/alesia14thstreet/afterlife-alesiaedit?in=alesia14thstreet/sets/alesia-zip
Fast forward a couple years and now we have Alesia.zip. With these tracks Alesia are really starting to experiment and push the boundaries of their previously established sound. When I first heard the track Imdabil I thought I was listening to Death Grips which just goes to show how outside of their typical realm Alesia is going with some of these tracks. On tracks such as ALESIA&UZ 26 Juillet 14 01, Stopcrus03, and Dabda Clean01 we see Alesia using 808’s to make hip hop influenced beats while still using their heavy synths to create something new and exciting. The track Unenchanted3 has a driving downtempo groove that catches you off guard and takes you on a journey through a world of sinister acid house inspired synths. Some of the highlights of the compilation are remixes of Tchami’s Afterlife and Rae Stremmurd’s No Flex Zone. Alesia has covered a lot of different genres of music with this release so there is something for almost everyone to like.
- Josh Garrett
