FACT mix 723: Gabber Modus Operandi

Indonesian duo Gabber Modus Operandi blast off into the far reaches of the global dance continuum.

Made up of DJ Kasimyn and vocalist Ican Harem, Gabber Modus Operandi were formed in Bali, where the two artists bonded over a shared love of disparate music and art, and similar feelings of alienation from the local scene.

When he was a student in Yogyakarta, Harem was deeply embedded in the local experimental and metal scenes, performing as part of Black Metal Karaoke (a black metal act that performs using Nokia cellphones). Kas, meanwhile, was working as a wedding DJ in Bali, and when the two met, they realized they both shared a fascination with dangdut, a 1970s folk dance form, and jathilan, a Javan ritual that encourages altered states with incense, repetitive music and movement.

Somehow, the duo’s music as Gabber Modus Operandi manages to represent all their disparate influences, rolling them up into a package of hard, fast dance music and pulling influence from across the global dance continuum and beyond. Their second album HOXXXYA is due for release on Shanghai’s SVBKVLT imprint on August 16, and drifts from noisy, irreverent gabber into footwork-influenced noise and beyond. It sounds like everything and nothing, an album deeply embedded in internet culture, but wary of its algorithmic averaging.

Kas and Harem’s FACT mix gives some hints at where their heads are at right now, drifting from Japan’s Foodman and Finnish IDM veteran Aleksi Perälä through tracks from Dutch hard dance mainstay DJ Looney Tune, bass OG dBridge, footwork legend DJ Rashad, Manchester’s fabulous AYA (fka LOFT), even finding time to throw in some exclusive material of their own. Gabber Modus Operandi paint a vivid picture of not only where they sit, sandwiched between the West and the East, but of the hopeful, spiky hedonism of the club’s most urgent fringes right now.

Tracklist:

Foodman – ‘Moyashi Kids’
Aleksi Perälä – ‘UK74R1827130’
Le Dom – ‘Blossom’
Slick Shoota – ‘Hyperflexx’
DJ Looney Tune – ‘Beatbox’ (Acieed Remix)
Mr. Tounu – ‘Internet’s Dream’
DJ Smokie – ‘The Dream Continues’
dBridge – ‘dB vs 45 King’
Satanicpornocultshop – ‘Kinzoku Bat’ (Tone Ra Remix)
DJ Rashad – ‘Juketasy’
Hardsequencer – ‘From The Ear To The Brain’
Microwave Prince – ‘Solar Eclipse’
Aaron Spectre – ‘Say More Fire’
DJ Chap – ‘Brujeria’
LOFT – ‘That Hyde Trakk’
Phrenetic System – ‘Wayfarer’
Zymotic – ‘Time To Get Busy’
Final Exposure – ‘Vortex’
DJ Marco Balley – ‘Scorpia’
Kelvin T – ‘Exclaim’
Stas – ‘Nuki-Nuki’
Gabber Modus Operandi – ‘Kon’