Madegg is a tough one to pin down. The Kyoto producer has been one of the most prolific electronic artists of the last few years, to the point where keeping track of everything he’s done has become a real challenge (shouts out to whoever is keeping tabs on that for the Madegg box set). One of the more confusing elements of his body of work is how he releases collections of songs online. I’m not talking about his full-length works with Flau or Day Tripper Records (those are easy to figure out – they actually appear as physical objects, in the biggest music retailers in Japan). I’m talking about his Bandcamp/SoundCloud-hosted EPs, or his new mixtape 3. Are these focused statements? Moments for the young music-maker to corral his best cuts of stuff he used to flood onto SoundCloud? Previews of what’s coming with his next physical release? He knows…all I can tell you is that 3 is a great collection of music from one of the country’s brightest young producers, however it came together.
That also plays into one of Madegg’s biggest strengths as an artist – he’s incredibly hard to pin down musically. He never constricts himself to one electronic style or trend, but rather plays around with many ideas…all while never sounding like he’s veering out of his comfort zone. 3 is marked by this, finding Madegg jumping from the minimal, Indian-souding skittering of “Slysteffg” to Clams-Casino-esque stuff on the more abrasive “Sun Angle.” Sometimes this sonic pioneerism manifests itself in individual songs – “III (Too Young)” is practically two songs spliced in two, while late cut “Summer Snow” jumps between twinkling prettiness to more bone-shaking passages. This mixtape highlights Madegg’s sneaky versatility – whatever he wants to call this, it is a reminder to always be excited about what he’s up to. Get it here, or listen to the song “Lie” below.