Innercity

Not to be mistaken for Kevin Saunderson’s pioneering house endeavor Inner City, Innercity functions as the solo outlet of Belgian experimental musician Hans Dens, operator of the tape imprint Why So Serious. Across dozens of limited-edition cassettes and vinyl pressings, the project delivers a distorted and occasionally unsettling viewpoint within the cosmic drone landscape of the present century. Its lo-fi synthesizer textures align more closely with the ritualistic mysticism of Popol Vuh than with the approaches of Tangerine Dream or Cluster, yet they incorporate abrasive, disquieting layers of noise and feedback that prevent any easy placement among new-age revivalists. Following over a dozen cassette and CD-R issues on imprints such as Rotifer Cassettes, Ruralfaune, and Hobo Cult, Innercity issued its debut vinyl outing, Future Life, in 2010 via the Belgian label Aguirre Records—an eerie excursion colored by spectral voices and intermittent pulsing electronic pulses. Additional titles appeared throughout 2011, among them a cassette for Not Not Fun titled Boy in Forest Trying to Hotwire the Earth, a 7-inch for NNA Tapes called Dada les Apocalypses, and full-lengths for Release the Bats/Ikuisuus (Backworld) and Aguirre (Terrestreality). The fourth vinyl album, A Lion’s Baptism, arrived on Seattle-based Further Records in 2012, steering the material toward denser, more destabilizing terrain. After several further cassettes and the 7-inch single “Fading World Romance,” Innercity revisited Further Records in 2015 for the fifth LP, ABABABABABABAS (Blue Lion Child), which replaced synthesizers with guitar, violin, and effects to produce its most abrasive and cataclysmic statement to date.