"'Where did you just go?' is something my girlfriend often says to me when she's talking to me and I kind of drift off. I'll be talking to her then just stop all of a sudden. I think the title reflects me and my music well; there's this idea of going in one direction then suddenly pausing to dream about a completely different place..." The debut album from Hrdvsion, aka Nathan Jonson, takes the listener to a variety places, at least some of which will doubtless be new to many ears. A non-compromising creator of glitch-heavy electronic music for the last decade or so, Hrdvsion has finally matched his esoteric vision to the more formal structures of house, techno and electro/breakbeat. "I did it to make the girls dance!" he laughs. "Actually it's a kind of bridging point. The production, the way it's mixed, is similar to my older stuff as I've always liked loud and punchy music. In general this album is a bit subtler. I focused on letting ideas evolve more slowly and let the grooves go on for longer. I realised I liked making techno! But it's still fairly challenging I think." Jonson's prior releases on labels like Itiswhatitis and the upcoming Wagon Repair (run by his brother, Cobblestone Jazz's Mathew Jonson) are known for their scattered Squarepusher-esque energy, their bleep-drenched melodies and sense of twisted urgency. Where did you just go? retains these circuit-busting tendencies yet aims more directly for the dancefloor. Opening track "842 Colours" blends off kilter beats with Hrdvsion's trademark skittish sounds, while cuts like "Captivated Heart", "City Girls", "Closed Eyes" and "Making It Home" cultivate and simultaneously subvert 'traditional' house and breakbeat riddims via buzzing synths and serrated melodies. The deep and resonant "Cause I Love You" (influenced by the DJ sets of his friends and fellow Berlin residents Dirt Crew) are, he admits, among the "softest I've ever written". "I think I'm coming to terms with the fact I don't have to fight against everyone," he says. "Four years ago, I would never have released something like this. I would have felt like I was doing it for someone else and that would have bothered me a lot. But now I can see it's still all done for me even if it doesn't sound like it. I've allowed myself to be more indulgent and ditch some of the anti-social sentiment apparent in older material..."Don't go thinking this is a predictable techno album though. Plenty of songs hark back to his earlier, more chaotic work. "Betrayed,""Bonker Brainss," "Kiss Yesterday Goodbye" and "Claustraneonia" are wild-eyed forays into acid-addled glitchtronica, replete with distended diodes and screaming capacitors. Nathan ends the album with a couple of nostalgic visits to his ambient days, namely "Amsterdam at 457" and the lush closer "I Wish I Could Directly Affect". Where did you just go? was started when Hrdvsion moved to Berlin in 2009. During a period of insecurity borne of being broke in an alien city, he opened up his laptop and sorted through hundreds of finished and half-finished songs, creating what were ostensibly remixes of the originals. "It was like this collaboration between the old me and the new me," he laughs. More or less by definition, Where did you just go? represents a brand new era for Hrdvsion and his unique sound.



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