Torus – ENGINE MALFUNCTION MUSIC VOL. X

Last time we caught up with Torus he’d shifted lanes and was delving into the visual world of fast cars. Now, he’s connecting the points sonically with his new EP out on Amsterdam imprint Rwina. An ode to car tuning compilations, it provokes the club space into being characteristically modified to the music, rather than left as an inactive backdrop.

“Decontextualizing the form from its original surroundings is an attempt to put together several cultural environments,”  he starts. “In combination with my graduation at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague, in which I visually question the musical white cube that is the club space, the EP can function as a reaction chamber between the art world and the vernacular subculture of tuning. It’s Eurodance versus experiment. The garage versus the white cube.”

Fuelled heavily by his interest for car tuning compilation albums and Holland’s electronic music heritage – eurodance and trance – the EP is an embodiment of his concern with how these genres function in relation to the avant garde electronic music scene he’s typically placed in. As part of his graduation, he’s constructed a visually contextualised, physical space in which the music should exist – think sleek engineered, custom designed race car garage – “as a contra proposal for the club space ideology that says that the space should be stripped of it’s visual components in order to experience the music in total”.

ENGINE MALFUNCTION MUSIC VOL. X is released on Rwina Records Friday 8 July, and you can visit the installation until Thursday 7 July as part of the KABK graduation show.