It’s been more than years, so it seems, that I last reviewed something from Kotra, the musical project of Dmytro Fedorenko, who is also the boss behind the Kvitnu album (see also elsewhere for another release of which he is part). It seems that he was active in the years in between but not all of his work reached these pages. The text that came along this suggests that this album was recorded and shelved rather than released for reasons that are not mentioned. There are six tracks on this CDR, which at twenty-two minutes is rather an EP than a LP, I would think. The music Kotra plays is very much along the lines the label releases; that is music with a heavy rhythm underneath, minimal and loud, in the best Pan Sonic tradition, with a bunch of piercing synthesizers that go along these minimalist beats.
Some of these synthesizers play something that is a melody, but they can also function as sine waves that hoover along. There is however something that makes Kotra’s music a bit more complex and, at times at least, also a bit more musical. It might be that sudden break, that off-beat that comes in very occasionally, a bit of side rhythm, some melodic line lurking about; that kind of thing. But a piece like ‘Don’t Forget, Exit’ is something that is textbook Pan Sonic. There is a groove in all six of these pieces, but perhaps it is not always a groove that engages to dance. It is the kind of groove that makes you stand and stare, nodding one’s head along the über-rhythm. After twenty-two minutes one is tired and satisfied, I think; it’s been a warm bath; time to cool down.