Ibrahim Alfa – Artificial Sunsets

Label: Wicked Bass – WB021
Format: Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM
Country: Ukraine
Released: 2017
Genre: Electronic
Style: Techno

Originally released on the now-defunct Mosquito label in 1998 — the imprint co-founded by Cristian Vogel — Ibrahim Alfa's Processor EP was the kind of record that found its audience slowly and kept it permanently. Ukraine's Wicked Bass repressed these two A-side tracks in 2017, bringing them to a new generation of listeners already primed by Alfa's Hidden By The Leaves mini-LP on Workshop. The timing was right, and the music was more than ready.

Alfa's appeal has always resisted easy categorisation — too skippy and scatty for those who like their techno executed with military precision, and perhaps too rough and noisy for those at the quirkier end of the house spectrum. Artificial Sunsets leans toward the former, an easygoing house groove with swinging drums and dreamy keys underpinned by an innate strangeness — a woozy lounge sample and a chirpy off-key synth refrain cycling relentlessly against each other with impulsive, restless charm. The Pursuit Of Happiness hits harder, slamming drums and a mean bassline livened by bursts of white noise, parts cutting in and out with the same impulsive touch. On both sides, Alfa nods to techno's P-Funk origins with bold and strange results. A cult record, restored.

A1. Artificial Sunsets
B1. The Pursuit Of Happiness