Control Transmission: The Sound of Alinka, ca. 2020

Alinka is one of the most talented producers making electronic music today and she should be booked for your club, festival, livestream or pet store opening as soon as possible. For 90% of producers, making something “different” means buying a new VST or keyboard. For Alinka, you have a range from hyper-snarky dis tracks (“Basic“) to the coordinated fuzz of her latest release on Crosstown Rebels.

Control Transmission is a laboratory for wild eruptions of electricity and joy, both tracks powered by an irradiated bassline thump. The title track has a nasty bite to it — drums hitting like ricocheting dumdum bullets. On “Day Zero” even HAL 9000 enters the din before quickly being driven out by a fusillade of audio projectiles and riffs that rattle around the brain like a psy-op score.

Control Transmission takes two words from the songbook of Joy Division and this big, spacious, rattling production style does seem to evoke something of the Martin Hannett school of music. If Ian Curtis were alive today he would undoubtedly be making electronic music and maybe something like this, alive with sentient hums and cries of electric machines. This sound is Alinka circa 2020 and is just enough to whet the appetite for an album. One is coming, right?

Alinka: Control Transmission / Crosstown Rebels (July 10 2020)
A1. Alinka: “Control Transmission” (6:46)
B1. Alinka: “Day Zero” (6:06)

Originally published in 5 Mag issue 182 featuring Jorge Caiado, John Digweed, Erick Morillo, Tee Mango and more. Support 5 Mag by becoming a member for just $1 per issue.