VA - SIIIX, Vol​.​1

Lying somewhere between a collaborative EP and a compilation, Brussels-based label Maloca Records presents SIIIX, Vol.1, a body of work showcasing a dialogue between veteran Netherlands-based HIIIT (fka percussion ensemble Slagwerk Den Haag) and 6 producers operating across a diverse spectrum of electronic music. Shimmering between footwork, IDM, UK bass and ambient, this project is united by a shared acoustic palette.

Born in 2021, HIIIT was directed by group member and respected multi-instrumentalist/composer Frank Wienk (Binkbeats) to record a sample bank from their vast collection of instruments and unique percussive sources, comprising everything from plastic fuel cans to the largest tam-tam in Europe. A select group of producers were then commissioned to compose sketches from this sample bank.

Chosen by HIIIT are label newcomers Azu Tiwaline, upsammy, Julian Sartorius, Krampfhaft and Valentina Magaletti, as well as Belgian drummer and producer Hi Hats In Trees, who returns to Maloca after releasing his album ‘Artefacts’ on the label last year. Each producer was hand-picked for their percussion-focused music approach and in many cases, their background as drummers.

After creating their sketches, the works were sent back to HIIIT, who recorded more unique layers of percussion on top of these initial pieces. These were then returned to the commissioned producers, with the brief being to utilise the newly recorded material in any way; but to ultimately create fully-realised pieces of music with it.

The final result led to 6 wildly different sonic outcomes. From the high-energy workouts of upsammy’s ‘Embrytone’, Azu Tiwaline’s ‘Brain Rattled’ and Hi Hats In Trees’s ‘CAIRO’, to Julian Satorius’s warped rhythms in ‘Klutsel-Klötzli’, or the cinematic ambient spaces conjured by Kramphaft’s ‘Anticline’ and Valentina Magaletti’s ‘A Drink with the Queen of Wands’, Maloca x HIIIT is a collection of music which rattles and pulses across the electronic music continuum. What unites this record is the acoustic colour and sense of life which would have been next to impossible to achieve without the bespoke sonics from HIIIT.

As a whole, the record can be considered as an organic dialogue; be it between composers and producers from a conceptual standpoint, or between acoustic sound sources and the resultant electronic manipulation when listening to the material.

Artwork by Quentin Lacombe