Following May’s collaborative EP, Renaissance, with fellow Tunisian, Eyor, DJ, head of Visionnaire (a vinyl-only record label), Rajol, follows up with the three-track Apollo 11, released on Berlin record label, What Now Becomes.
Opening with ‘Short Note with a Few’, Rajol immediately makes it clear that this latest offering is a more rhythmic, dance-floor focused collection of tracks. At a blistering 11-minute runtime, the opener really takes its time building up to full realisation at around the four-minute mark, where jazzy chord stabs take over melodic duties. Granted, it drags on a bit, but new musical ideas are thrown in over the duration to keep it from stagnating.
Track two, ‘Flashing for the Light’, takes things in a more upbeat direction, with a groovy, pulsating bassline and more prominent, organic percussion. It also takes way less time to get going, and reaches full swing about two minutes into its 13-minute runtime. Swirling, pulsating synths fill up most of the expansive background atmosphere and help provide some melodic variation to contract the accentuated drums.
The closer and title-track, ‘Apollo 11’, sees Rajol team-up with Eyor once again. Although considerably shorter, it comes through as the more interesting track on the record; rather than playing with the same musical ideas, there is much more evolution and it makes for a far more exciting listening experience.
For the more discerning fans of minimal, the EP could well be hard to distinguish from functional, club-ready minimal music. All in all, though, tracks on Apollo 11 are accomplished and extremely cohesive, blending into one another nicely in terms of instrumentation and sonic aesthetic.
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