'Thoughts Racing' / Ahm
Ahm’s Thoughts Racing (EP) is a therapeutic exercise in emotional liberation exerted through the prism of jungle, IDM and DnB
Released on Anterograde, Thoughts Racing is a 4-track exploration of the human condition in response to loss. It was created in a period of grief which has been translated musically into the dual motif between tension and release that pervades the EP. Ahm comments on the period of creation:
“I wrote most of these tracks a year ago when my friends and I were dealing with an immense and shocking sadness and loss. Everyone around me was grappling with a deep grief whilst also trying really hard to support one another. It was both beautiful and terrifying.”
Beautiful and terrifying is a perfect way to describe the experience of listening to Thoughts Racing from start to finish. Notably, each track marries inner emotion with killer drum and bass beats, foreshadowing to me once again that emotional drum and bass is the future of club music.
“Circuit” begins the partnership with calming pads, trickling synth textures and distorted percussive heats. Ahm’s identity as a drummer emerges audibly in the syncopated breakbeat rhythms and intricate drum programming. Keenly, “Circuit” features a processed sample of Ahm’s grandfather telling them a family fable about blueberries. The childhood realisation of mortality which Ahm gains through this fable is imbued within the reflective atmosphere of the piece.
“Grief” submits to the evolving sense of tension and anxiety within the EP, coloured with metallic synth stabs and a stripped-back break which detonates throughout the track. In a similar fashion, the titular track “Thoughts Racing” begins with an unwavering feeling of unease with sonic scrapes akin to the disconcerting noise of nails against a chalkboard.
Ahm plays with panning and heightened effects of reverb and delay on the twisted breaks in “Thoughts Racing” to provide motion to the notion of thought loops, insomnia and anxiety. As movement and sound become inextricably linked, the abundant use of the Meng Qi Karp instrument within the EP is doubly noted. Evidently, Ahm notes that the instrument was widely important in the creation of Thoughts Racing, as its textures add an aggressive and energetic character to the EP which masterfully resonates with Ahm’s cathartic purpose. They comment:
“Music making has always been a way for me to express and work through complex emotions - giving a feeling a home in a piece of music, and spending time constructing the song to reflect it, can provide a real sense of release from those feelings, however temporary.
Making music isn’t primarily an intellectual process for me, rather one that prioritises emotion and release.”
On the same liberating wavelength, Ahm describes the final track “Safe Space” as “about finding an emotional place where you can interrogate these feelings safely - which is something I can often access when making music”. While the unnerving introduction seemingly opposes such a concept, “Safe Space” quickly becomes the most up-beat track of the EP. Clearly, the breaks are reliable with a filtered punchy kick-drum and hopeful pads conclude with a synth melody that beseeches acceptance and renewal.
Thoughts Racing differs significantly from Ahm’s previous releases as they retreat from techno aesthetics and move into the terrain of darker more exhilarating drum and bass. Amidst isolation Ahm has been working on some remixes soon to come out and a live collaboration with Hextape which will hopefully yield another release before the end of this deathly year.
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Article by Margarita Bassova
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