Knowing Ezra Kahn’s output, including their various burner accounts to post demos and old material, their new track, “Melodrama323”, is not surprising. What’s surprising to me is that it made it to main under their lilic moniker, Kahn’s main capital A Artist name, seemingly reserved for their hyper contemporary, drumless, abstract electronic music. This most recent track departs drastically from their Fennesz-y tendencies and goes for a more lighthearted Mothersbaugh palette straight from the Rugrats score, complete with hocketing major key (happy!) General MIDI instrumentation, superimposed over what is truly the most shocking element: a looping, almost Animal Collective-esque, beat. Naturally this also sounds like Far Side Virtual, an epochal record that no doubt is scripture for the whole scene that Kahn inhabits. But for whatever sounds of the past it references, intentionally or not, the production style places it squarely in the current day; kick sidechaining sucking the center out of the mix, exaggerating the stereo field. I’m curious where Kahn will go next; is this the seed of a fruitful chapter or a one-off experiment that crept into their oeuvre?