Mira Calix's 2019 EP
Utopia is her first Warp release in 11 years, but beyond that, it's a return to the sort of beat-driven IDM she'd veered away from following 2003's Skimskitta. Since then, she's largely concentrated on orchestral works, large-scale multimedia installations, and compositions for film, dance, theater, and opera.
Utopia is a back-to-basics release, containing four brief tracks filled with angular rhythms and clipped vocal snatches. The tracks are minimal yet busy, with all of the sonic elements seeming to float in a spherical direction around empty space. There are suggestions of rhythm and melody, and when words are audible, they bluntly reveal inner desires and feelings.
Calix inquires, "Do you want me, or do you just go along with things?" amidst the airy click-and-slap beat and floating bass pulse of "just go along." More whimsical is "bite me," a playfully meandering groove with
Calix's fragmented vocals gradually forming the phrase "At some point it's probably gonna bite me in the ass." The EP's high point is "upper ups," a patchwork of diced voices and fractured beats that resist forming a conventional rhythm yet still propel the piece in an oblong fashion. Typical of much of
Calix's work,
Utopia can seem brittle and challenging, but it's driven by a genuine sense of curiosity, and it's more accessible than it might appear. ~ Paul Simpson