By Johan Giglot; Translated from Dutch:
Dutch-Canadian producer apaull sends a clear message with the debut 'Fought & Won', which directly references the Covid pandemic, a time during which this album was largely written. The dance creator wants to bring musical and social stability with this album after times when the government took its role as a social watchdog too seriously on several occasions.
“You can't cancel me / I'm already dead”. apaull opens the album with one long, no longer pulsating heartbeat tone and threatening words. With restless samples and crackling sounds and an understated beat, he drags the listener into a story of eight tracks in a very sinister way that is a mix of progressive dance, industrial techno, electrowave and dark ambient.
Voice samples and bizarre ambient sounds repeatedly create a strange, but also very cinematic effect. And if that isn't enough, the producer injects an up-tempo rocking creation like Dogma(x) into a psychedelic haze of constantly revolving sounds. And fragments of a Dutch commentator who speaks echoingly about “completely useless distance rules that threaten our social life”. Successor Pink Gun Club announces in a robot voice “The world is dangerous, so you also have to be dangerous”, while resounding deep house vibrations fly around your ears. And doesn't a fragment of Sniff & The Tears' Driver's Seat pass by among the pumping? Playing bird.
In other words: apaull has packed the constantly evolving and changing dance tracks with plenty of sounds. And yet that does not bother and the common thread remains largely tense. Sometimes even very tight. Like in the seven nervous minutes of slamming techno on Tight Dope, with its with frayed drums and space blips.
Each of the eight tracks on 'Fought & Won' are absolute bangers! In other words: we can certainly advise you to listen and enjoy. After all, we fought. And we won. Period.