07/22/2025
The Molokai Compendium has landed! I will make a more in-depth announcement the day of, but this Thursday's Altered Circuitry: ReWired will be built around several tracks from the album..... be sure to note places or attractions you want to explore once your feet touch the ground ๐๐๐๐งโโ๏ธ
'๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐' is Bandcampโs 'Album Of The Day'! ๐บ
"Alex Koenig might get lumped in with vaporwave, but the producerโs work as Nmesh goes deeper than dolphin GIFs and abandoned malls. He cut his teeth drumming for metal and hardcore bands in Louisville, Kentucky, then turned to electronic production after getting hooked on psychedelics and the Warp Records catalog. The Nmesh project kicked off in the early โ00s, with a smattering of records that spanned blissful breakbeats, plunderphonic glitches, and marshy noise. The project strengthened during the โ10sโa woozy heyday for terminally online stoners. Defined by a series of increasingly freaky left turns, Koenigโs discography now lands somewhere between Black Dice, Omni Trio, and a thrifted New Age cassette with occult backmasking.
Koenigโs first Nmesh album in eight years, The Molokai Compendium, comes courtesy of Doom Trip Recordsโa Los Angeles label that champions cyber-dystopian sonics. The inspiration for The Molokai Compendium arrived after an Aphex Twin concert, as Koenig surfed cable channels in his hotel room. Watching an action film directed by Andy and Arlene Sidaris (Malibu Bay Films) eventually informed the media he sampled. The Molokai Compendium contains a few retro โ80s sketches, but it largely builds on the darker experimentation that Koenig introduced on 2017โs Pharma. โHeavyweight Subliminalโ flirts with crispy electro, offsetting curt voice snippets with explosive percussion. โRMS Ephratha PAโ dissolves from acid-bath downtempo to diamond-sharp atmospherics. โMRO Crib Move 5โ merges a pummeling techno beat and brash vocal chops. The second half of the record traverses the kind of balmy ambient he previously explored on ใญในใใจใใณใธใฎใใน (The Path To Lost Eden), his 2018 split with Telepath.
From the jump, Koenig has been wary of pigeonholing. โIโd say the all-encompassing label to put on my soundโor the safe oneโwould be โelectronic,โโ he told Tiny Mix Tapes in 2014. โItโs unfortunate that Iโd suggest such a bland description; the sound all varies dramatically from release to release.โ Nowhere is this clearer than on The Molokai Compendium, an album that reframes Koenig as an IDM savant with roots stretching back to the genreโs prime."
๐ฐ: daily.bandcamp.com/album-of-the-day/nmesh-the-molokai-compendium-review
