Antanas Jasenka from Lithuania describes himself as being someone who explores various areas of music and claims to have reached an own musical identity. Something his latest release Giib on Clinical Archives is to demonstrate. After a rather mediocre intro which – apart from rather persistent shrill feedback – consists of some “preparation noise”, to point out that something is about to happen during the next few minutes, subway 2 finally delivers the promise of a mature music style. Not unlike later Autechre works, Antanas Jasenka creates a juxtaposition of chord variations that seem harmonic at first glance. Looking closer, however, these tones are too erratic and glassy for a warm feeling of tenderness, but this fragile crystalline balance is exactly what makes this tune quite interesting.

Much too soon we are dragged away and shrouded into a bleak echo loop, which seems to simulate the monotonous driving noise of an imaginary subway. There, a shrill, piercing alarm bell, the pulse of time with distant synth lines that provide a rather sketchy tonality. Unfortunately, like in the beginning, Antanas Jasenka is a bit overdoing his lengthy usage of unpleasant frequencies, which considerably limits the joy of listening via headphones. Fortunately this practice is discontinued in the follow up track, which features some references to the Tresor label’s abstract and rather dissonant techno of the later nineties, albeit without using a centred bass drum as pivot element that keeps everything together. Sadly, the sample sequences are too short to work effectively by themselves and the forced usage of conflict rhythms turns out to be rather disturbing and counterproductive to the music’s consistence.

Autechre like chord sequences are picked up again towards the end of the release and embedded into distortion and feedback. Like in subway 2, the illusion of harmony is interfered by erratic tones and displaced elements but that does not prevent the track from reaching a peaceful final. Clearly the best moments of Giib are those dominated by a strange fragile melodic and the weakest are those where Antanas Jasenka tries to be harsh and abstract, something that does not really seem to fit to his musical vocabulary and therefore ends up as half hearted attempt at creating contemporary noise abstractions. As a whole interesting, but not really overwhelming.