My first encounter with French jack of instrumental trades Gautier Serre—the main man behind Igorrr—wasn't intentional, it was a happy accident born from a typo. I was looking for the manic, high-octane speedcore of I:Gor, hoping for that familiar rush of 160 bpm kicks to obliterate my senses. What I got instead was "ADHD," the first song off Igorrr's new album Amen. Fortunately, the track hit like a tidal wave of sound, a chaotic, wonderful jumble of sonic gymnastics that was precisely what I was looking for at the time. It was all there: the Amen break, but twisted and stretched into new, impossible shapes, a testament to the kind of genius you find in the work of Squarepusher or Eprom. The track was packed to the brim with new ideas, each one a different way of contorting the same iconic drum loop, suggesting Serre may have wanted to give it a more permanent acknowledgment via the title of his band's fifth studio release.
Shame about the sloppy AI though...
Igorrr feels like a tensile tester. Much like these machines apply increasing tension to materials until they break, Serre seems to constantly push the boundaries of disparate genres to the point where they redline your average CDJ. His music is versatile enough to be played in the clinical halls of Berghain, yet also feels sinister enough for the intimate setting of a fellow kvltist's walk-up basement, which doubles as a place for a cultic ritual. For elitists of distorted, monstrous black metal and metalcore as well as nerds and adrenaline-junkies of electronic dance music, the French multi-instrumentalist and producer's nearly two decades of success is nothing short of remarkable.
What's more remarkable is that the "steadfastly unclassifiable" Amen—a phrase found in far too many press releases—maintains its effect from the very first track. The album opens with "Daemoni," which features a squelchy, gritty bassline that sounds like chewing peanut butter and spinning it around your mouth until you unintentionally bite the inside of your cheek. The radiating pain that follows is a fitting description for the track's tone. Fans of mid-tempo pioneers like Rezz and electro-industrial devils like Gesaffelstein will recognize this sound, but the nasty undertones have been amplified to ten with rip-roaring djent guitars that could soundtrack the end of the world. While this might seem like Serre is moving in a familiar direction to longtime Igorrr fans, Amen sees him wholeheartedly pushing his work to its absolute maximum in an incredibly ambitious way.
The track "Limbo" toys with Serre's love for classical music and operatic solos—a passion he doesn't shy away from throughout his entire discography, especially on records like 2010’s Nostril—except here, it's played in a way that makes the diva singing the aria feel as if she's part of the chaos, not just soundtracking it. Her voice chokes up as if an evil entity has grasped her throat, and she abandons any sense of vocal training as the song collapses into a cataclysmic breakdown at the 2:50 mark. In a more physical sense, however, Serre also manipulates the timbres of snare drums or even how a piano is played, which he could do physically as opposed to on a digital audio workstation. On the track "Pure Disproportionate Black And White Nihilism," for instance, he experiments with a blacksmith's anvil, pushing the boundaries of what an instrument can be.
Amen also includes things you wouldn't expect Serre to perform, such as his take on a grindcore song on "2020," which may be the shortest track in his catalog, coming in at under 12 seconds—a far cry from the winding, behemoth-sized structures of many Igorrr tracks. Then there's "Ancient Sun," which showcases Serre's interpretation of trip-hop, with its nods to traditional music and unusual, goosebump-inducing melodies. It sounds like something that could not only soundtrack a new billion dollar movie on the Addams Family franchise but also be used by a sect leader to lull his devotees into a complacent, vulnerable stupor.
As someone who has written for numerous publications, I'm often expected to recommend music by pigeonholing it into specific genres—a practice that makes it easier for mass audiences and media to categorize and consume. Igorrr, on the other hand, has always made that job tough, not just for me, but for anyone covering, sharing, and listening, fiercely resisting what most outlets attempt. Amen is no exception, and anything else would be a complete disservice to everything Serre has done or will do in the past, present or future.