MPU101's second full-length for Ilian Tape is a road record in the truest sense, recorded across nine US states plus London in 2025, then edited back home in Bavaria. The ten tracks move like a long drive through shifting terrain, from the dusty breakbeat pulse of "Montana Interface" to the weirder, more open-ended zones of "Cellular Loner" and "JAIradiation." There's a clear hip hop backbone here, but it's stretched and smeared through ambient textures and techno discipline, so nothing sits still for long. "California Sunshine Acid" brings in Jade Byrne on words, and her vocal delivery cuts through the electronics with a dry, conversational edge that fits the record's road-worn mood.
The production is what holds it together. Tobias Neumann mixed it in Berlin and it shows, the low end is fat and tactile, the drums hit hard without ever feeling sterile. The shorter cuts, "apocalypso lime," "JAIradiation," "breathoutM1r" and "Campsite Sequence," appear in extended versions digitally, and the vinyl pressing trims them down, so there's a reason to grab both if you're that way inclined. It's not a record that announces itself, it's more of a slow burner, the kind of thing that reveals its details over a few listens. If you're into the more abstract end of Ilian Tape's roster, or artists like Skee Mask and Stenny who blur the line between club tools and headphone music, this will slot right in. The acid lines on the closing tracks are properly squelchy too, which never hurts.
