Subwater Beats II by Beatdenker (aka Jo Wespel) in collaboration with Felix Henkelhausen, and Max Santner is a full-bodied plunge into the shimmering unknown of rhythm-forward, postcontemporary sound. Recorded in a Berlin rehearsal room but sounding like it emerged from the deep end of an alien coral reef, the album, released on May 23, 2025, is a meticulously sculpted world.
Jo Wespelโs guitar and production sensibilities work like a submarine captainโs controls, steering through murky depths of IDM, avant-garde jazz, and complex rhythmic architecture. The chemistry with Henkelhausen (double bass) and Santner (drums) feels lived-in, like a band formed in teenage bedrooms and decades of shared curiosity. Their sound, however, is anything but adolescent. Think Brian Ferneyhough meets Aphex Twin on a dive beneath technoโs tectonic plates.
The opening track, โJ.3: Subwater Hipster,โ sets the tone with snapping, glimmering beats clashing against gritty guitar grinds, dissolving into a textured fade that prepares you for the rest of the aquatic trip. By track five, โJ.5: Kinky Shark Party,โ youโre dancing with the bubbles. A deep blur ushers in a playful techno groove that shuffles and fizzes like underwater laughter, morphing before it can settle, then vanishing.
โ3.5: New Underwater Complexityโ is the piรจce de rรฉsistance. Low-pitched pulses swell and shimmer as intricate synths churn, until the drums crash through like sonar signals. A breathy female voice softly intones โbreathe inโฆ breathe out,โ with a dreamlike sensuality to the meticulously structured chaos.
Subwater Beats II is a speculative soundscape loaded with ecological metaphors, utopian dreams, and rhythmical provocations. Itโs political, itโs weird, it grooves hard, and it dares you to reimagine what beats can be when they ripple beneath the surface.
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Review by: Naomi Joan