What does Nanode sound like?
A dirty and dangerous party but everyone’s invited and expected to bring their Gameboy.
The review of Nanode – FLOTE
Continuous albums. Where songs mix effortlessly from one to the other, sometimes seamlessly and without listener knowledge unless you get intimate with the song structure. I have a weakness for albums that do this exceptionally well and that’s why today I bring you Nanode’s “FLOTE”. It is a glitchy EDM album that also borrows from chiptune, dubstep and even grungy noise at times. It’s also a continuous album that never takes a break.
Across the 11 tracks and 26 minutes, the beats will never stop. Instead, they evolve without you noticing. The hazy celestial beats of “Fatewind” get sharper, along with the synths when the kickdrum of “888” slaps into the album. That then gets crunchy and more EDM/chiptuney when “L8NIGHT” transitions in. Want thick grizzly basslines and low dubs? “STAGGER” brings that with a detuned dancefloor riff that gets stuck in your brain. The track gets increasingly more aggressive so that “fuyck” can provide a grungy noise rap with dissonant machine beeps and glitch-warped melodies aplenty. You don’t think about how you got to the overblown power drums of “Warp” where we’ve entered a mashup of industrial dubs and gameboy bleeps. Instead, you’ve been carried along for the ride and it oddly makes sense. We’re far away from where we started with “Fatewind” but it felt so natural.
Nanode’s party isn’t over though. The title track “FLOTE” is a four-minute centrepiece that takes a dancefloor rhythm and melodies and proceeds to distort the hell out of it. It leaves the pulsating warning sirens that provide the melodic beat live for “Tracker” and slowly twists it into a creepy ambience that arrives at “never”. This track is a horror movie love scene for two minutes complete with disconnected haunted vocals and ambient weirdness. We then leave the party via “TRAVEL”, a tape-warped ambience piece like a scratched-up elevator music nightmare being dry-humped by vaporwave in a cloud dungeon.
Yet it all makes sense. Nanode has effortlessly taken us to a party, we’ve danced our brains out, got loud and leary and then ended up in some creepy fever dream. It is a fantastic showcase of how the album format can work so well as a continuous music piece, broken into hidden chapters. It’s also (until things get super creepy) an absolute jam and needs to be played at high volume. “FLOTE” is a hidden masterpiece in dance music – this type of music isn’t usually my jam but I adore this album. Don’t sleep with or on it. Unhinged by design.
Recommended track: STAGGER
Support Higher Plain Music
Higher Plain Music is part of the Higher Plain Network – a one-man indie media project. If you like what I do, please consider supporting me via Patreon for as little as $1/£1 a month. In return, you’ll receive additional perks for supporting me, such as behind-the-scenes content and free downloads. You can also donate using PayPal. Sharing the website helps too or using the affiliate buy now links on reviews. I receive a few pence per Amazon sale. All your support will enable me to produce better content, more often. I’d love to make this a full-time media network and your support can make that happen. Thank you.
Nanode - FLOTE