As a genre, electronic dance music (EDM) is as nebulous as it is popular. But before it took over the mainstream, it was a fractured collection of genres and subgenres, including house, techno, drum and bass, dubstep, jungle, breakbeat, trip-hop and so many more. In a dingy apartment off of West End, my college roommates dangled tantalizing 12-inch slices of each before me, hoping to draw me into the vortex of electronic music that was their lifeblood.
It never quite took, but that had less to do with the records they played than my then-current obsession—’90s underground hip-hop. I was far too busy plumbing those nearly inexhaustible depths to dive into a new genre, especially one as vast and all-consuming as electronic music.
All that to say, the swelling, filtered synths, the chest-pummeling bass and frantic, stuttering drum loops of Sterfry’s Inside My Head took me back to that old apartment and to those records my roommates so richly revered.
“Stuck in the Microwave,” the insistent opener, sets the agenda. With its chunky synths, huge, rumbling bass, and head-cracking barrage of drop loops and fills, Sterfry makes it clear that this is no easy-listening electronic pap.
On “Shots Blazin’,” Sterfry eases back—way, way back—with what sounds like a chopped-and-screwed remix of a spaced-out dubstep track.
The slow opening and tinkling, jazzy keys keep the vibe mellow on “Fireworks,” until a bridge of sawmill-synths chews through the relative calm.
The album is rounded out with two uptempo tracks, “swag ON” and “what I want,” each featuring furiously quick drum loops and swaths of synth punctuated by blips and buzzing electronic effects.
Being almost entirely instrumental, Inside My Head may only appeal to a limited audience, and that’s a shame. Each song on the 5-track EP is a densely layered, polyrhythmic treat. If Tower were still selling records on West End, I’d expect to see a vinyl pressing of this album prominently displayed beside the cash registers, where a flannel-shirted employee with long, greasy hair would talk up its virtues, doing all he could to entice you into the vertiginous world of electronic music.
Find Inside My Head by Sterfry on Bandcamp.
