"A mounting, at times seemingly admonishing epic – driven by overloaded, syncopated kickdrums, scuttling hi-hats and scuffed snap-claps that sound wonderfully lively and unsequenced – ‘Ex Nihilo’ pays sonic homage to the mid-’90s Detroit fall-out, but it feels contemporary in spirit. It treats dystopia not as a sci-fi fantasy but as a sober reality. Droning synths hover heavy in the distance like sunrise on a battlefield; the melodies are pretty, seeming to evoke ruin and apocalpyse, sure, but also a resolve to rebuild, or at least to revel in the wreckage. It’s impossible to adequately decode, and impossible not to admire. I can’t remember the last time I heard a techno track sound so angry, so sad, so determined." Fact
