public releases hits the lab for some aural alchemy and to turn out its first release of 2017. a four-tracker from moscow’s phil gerus, scenes—or, in the producer’s native russian, с,ц,е,н,ы,—manages to have a makeup that’s both peculiar and magnetic. the title’s a fitting one, every track feels like a vignette in a collection of short stories. separately, they’re self-contained, but a rich narrative arch is added when they’re sewn together. if there is a theme here, it’s of viewing the future through the dusty lens of the past, and each of the songs explores this in its own fashion. the kick-off, “ohashi sky garden,” starts as a hyped-up italo space epic, pumped full of swirling synth licks and sharp, tight drums, but it mutates into something completely its own when vocal samples (90s r&b?) and warm keys (prog rock rhodes?) enter. after the original’s brisk five minutes, the legendary richard sen—graffiti guy, breaks guy, house guy, disco guy, half-of-padded-cell guy—steps in to give it a trance-y tinge while doubling its runtime and adding a dancefloor-destroying hi-nrg coloration. the b begins with “naha swim,” a crunchy funk foot-stomper that might as well be an unreleased idjut boys or ray mang ditty dug up from the noid catacombs. fiery and furious, yet utterly cheeky. serving as a sort of coda to “naha” is “kiss of a kind,” a gerus take on 80s adult contemporary, replete with sleazy sax and sensual pads. a gentle nightcap to a zigzagging, antic 12-inch
