Senking pays tribute to classic video game Pong on new album

Senking isn’t a name that will be familiar to many of you, but you can take our word for it: he’s a class act.

The alter ego of Cologne’s Jens Massel, Senking has released a number of 12″s and albums over the years, primarily on Karaoke Kalk and Raster-Noton. His 2008 album List combined synth sequences in the vein of John Carpenter or Angelo Badalamenti, grindhouse vocal snippets and extraordinarily badass drones into a queasy, seductive noir narrative like no other; not for nothing was it ranked among FACT’s 100 Best Albums of the 2000s.

On September 6, Senking will release a brand new album through Raster-Noton. Entitled Pong, it’s an oblique homage to the rudimentary yet insanely addictive video game classic of the same name, and finds its maker exploring what the label refers to as “stretched dubstep rhythms…[that] are aware of the club but do not want to serve it”. To these strung-out drum patterns Senking adds his signature”shredded” melodies, stomach-turning sub-bass and echo FX; unlike the majority of Raster-Noton artists, he’s less concerned with clinical digital processing and more with murky, organic-sounding textures.

Intriguingly, the CD album will be packaged with an additional data-CD featuring a 3D interpretation of the original Pong game by the Almost Sync collective of visual artists and software designers.