Sergey Khaninev aka AtariX has been around for a long time. Twenty years ago he was part of the breakcore trio Rebell Terract, which was one of my favorite indie acts in this genre at the time. We played their tracks here in our radio show in the early 00s. When years later in 2004, AtariX sent me a demo submission for my netlabel 20kbps, I didn’t realize at first that I already knew and played his music. While you can hear AtariX’s musicality in the Rebell Terract stuff (a musicality that sets their stuff apart from so much of the other indie riot stuff), his AtariX solo stuff is still very different. When I found out who he was, I was very excited and asked him about it. But he already moved on, the breakcore scene seemed to be something he had left behind for good. At least that was my impression and I have to say that my experience with our breakcore/digital hardcore band daftN0!ze was similar. Towards the mid of the 00s the riot scene was exhausted and lacked creativity. It became a whoever can distort the amen break the most has the longest schlong kind of thing.

The new album is released under the moniker Bitmapper. I don’t know if he used this moniker before, but he made an AtariX album once that was titled The Bitmapper. Andalismo starts with some very beautiful smooth jazz stuff, but skillfully drifts off to other laidback lounge styles. According to the info sheet, the album is a sonic travelogue, referencing a wonderful trip he made to Andalusia. The whole album was produced with a Teenage Engineering’s OP-1. I don’t know this instrument, but it seems very capable. All twelve tracks are impressive, but one (of several) that sticks out is New Age of Gemini. Its name is a reference to his up to date most successful album The Age Of Gemini, which was released as a CD in 2014 on Acidsamovar Records. I also like that there are several short tracks under three minutes running time. I can’t tell you what the songs have to do with Andalusia, as I was never there, but the album does feel like a short vacation, like a short trip to a southern destination.

The beautiful psychedelic ambient track Faster Than Light has an official video clip. It’s a recoding of a drive through (I guess) Andalusia. In the reflection of the glass pane you can sometimes notice the interior of the driving vehicle. I think it’s some kind of bus or van:

The album is released on his label Trutypesounds. You can buy Andalismo for a buck on bandcamp or stream it on Spotify etc.