VTSS – Projections (INDIE EXCLUSIVE) (MARKDOWN) For Cheap

Hard. Fast. Uncompromising. This is how VTSS, one of techno s brightest new stars of the past few years, is often described. But there s more to the artist, real name Martyna Maja, than that reputation might suggest. It s true that she s one of dance music s most notorious thrillseekers; Maja s DJ sets the world over, from Berghain to Bossa Nova, are renowned for their blow-the-house-down energy. And her club tracks, from speaker-crumbling early EPs like Self-Will and Identity Process, show the headstrong hedonism that s become her trademark. But Projections, VTSS s first EP for Ninja Tune is, she says, a new chapter that simultaneously represents a fresh direction and a return to her experimental roots. While her tracks were already acquiring fans in Blawan and Rebekah, VTSS was also DJing at mega-raves like London s Junction 2 and Possession in Paris; throughout 2019 she pulled off the difficult wire-balancing act of being a critics favourite and a big-room destroyer. The track that really took off that year, though, was cult favourite Atlantyda, which VTSS teased for months in shows (and on her Instagram); it s been streamed on Spotify alone almost a million times. Though it samples a pastoral piece of early 90s Polish synth pop, Atlantyda transforms the original s folky lullaby into a mechanised fantasia of humming electrical current and an angle-grinding bassline straight out of a video nasty. But Projections introduces a new phase of VTSS s catalogue. Its nimble drum architectures and scattered tempos express, on the one hand, a desire to break free of familiar ideas, and on the other, a single-minded pursuit of expressing herself, whatever form it might take.