Review: Steffi – The Red Hunter

In psychology and literature, the uncanny is a term used to describe the experience of something as not simply mysterious, but unfamiliar and unnerving, yet in a strangely familiar way.

Steffi’s new LP, The Red Hunter, is a haunting collection of tracks that exude a haunting comfort, an otherworldly grounding, a macabre fascination.

Things open with Irreversible Cessation, which unapologetically sets the tone for the rest of the record. It’s what you expect from a deep electro record, and yet feels like anything but convention. It’s a slow, almost meditative build, breathing itself to life over 6 minutes amidst repetitive two-tone hums wax and wane beneath an echo chamber fragile melodies.

Next up is Alternation of High and Low, which leads with anxious comfort from the off. It’s a stuttering, choppy number that rattles the bones and does what it says on the tin – the hi hats are offset by yawning bass swells as spacey synths float in melodic purgatory in-between.

Agents of Change quite literally changes in and of itself throughout, layering surprise synths and ghostly curiosities that dissolve into an atmosphere of ethereal visions. Towards the end of the album, South Facing Brightness thumps forward, drawing together the darkness of a bassline and the lightness of heavenly chords, while closer Lasting Lovers incorporates unexpected breakbeats with hypnotic beauty.

All in all, it’s a release that quite literally releases itself from the conventional confines and expectations of electronic music, working with the mobility of genre and technique, style and instrumentation, vocals and chords, to create a refreshing and experimental challenge to the club anthem while at the same time remaining firmly rooted in the far-reaching, overlooked capabilities of electronic sounds.