Veteran electronic auteur Mike Paradinas, better known to the world as µ-Ziq, returns two years after his acclaimed Balmat debut 1977 with his latest record, 1979. The album once again lands via Barcelona-based imprint Balmat, and immediately signals a continuation of the sonic wanderings that defined its predecessor. On 1979, µ-Ziq ventures deeper into the wilderness of sound, from ethereal ambient terrains to abstract, flashlight-glinting grooves, delivering some of the most searching material in his illustrious career.
London-born in 1971 and active since the early 1990s under the µ-Ziq moniker, Paradinas has long been a pivotal figure in electronic music. He emerged on fellow IDM pioneers’ radar with his debut on Rephlex and built his reputation with genre-defining works such as Lunatic Harness (1997) and Royal Astronomy (1999). He founded the label Planet Mu in 1995, which went on to champion forward-thinking artists and sounds from experimental IDM to footwork and dubstep. Over his decades-long career, µ-Ziq has continued to mutate, adopt aliases like Kid Spatula and Jake Slazenger, and remain a potent force in the underground and beyond.
On 1979, Paradinas retains the synth-heavy, atmospheric cast of its predecessor while still carving new terrain. The album is a collection of shimmering landscapes, ominous crevices and psychedelic fugues – not quite ambient, but hovering close to it. Tracks such as ‘Majadahonda at Dawn’ conjure ghostly morning light; ‘Clari’ unfurls with a playful melody; ‘Galletas’ offers airy melancholy; and ‘Houzz 14’ delivers an unexpected foray into breakbeat abandon, venturing into rare dancefloor territory for a typically introspective output. Across the record, echoes of classic braindance and IDM shimmer, yet µ-Ziq filters them through a lens of abstraction and memory. This album hearkens back to his old work while slipping into another universe entirely — one only he knows the coordinates to.
“This was about returning to spaces I had walked around in my mind, returning to fragments I couldn’t fully recall,” Paradinas says of 1979. “It’s less about nostalgia and more about chasing after something I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye.”
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