* to celebrate the second anniversary of khemia records we are pleased to welcome back in aeternam vale, the legendary french artist who inaugurated the imprint on a split ep with bronze teeth in march 2016. * this is the first single-artist ep produced by the label, initiating a new series that will run parallel to the v/a editions. * the tracks ‘dave’ and ‘circles’ form an elliptical conundrum composed of various references including kubrick’s alchemical allegory 2001 a space odyssey, (sampled in french) with it’s existential narrative of a schizophrenic artificial intelligence lurking in the shadows. the deus ex machina wondering if mankind is still useful to machines, or perhaps even dangerous to them? the infamous seveso chemical disaster at the pharmaceutical laboratory icmesa caused by human error, the glowing blood-red sphere of hal 9000, the all-seeing eye of the sentient super-computer and the circular composition of the toxic compound 2.3,7.8 tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (tcdd), released into the atmosphere at seveso. with this cryptic feedback loop, laurent prot is suggesting that the new technologies we are developing now, for use in our near future could result in catastrophe when human control is lost to the self-learning of ai. the homicidal consequences of a machine take-over find visual form in the bleak, dystopian aesthetic of evelyn bencicova’s cover artwork.