Gull is a masked one-man band that we once compared to Lightning Bolt and Battles, and Gleix is an electronic musician from Brooklyn who specializes in IDM, ambient, breakcore, and drill ‘n’ bass, and they’ve now collaborated on the new single “Prepared Breaks.” As the title implies, it’s a combination of prepared piano and breakcore, “though that’s probably obvious and not the most.. creative title,” Gleix says.

More background, via press release: “The project was spearheaded by fellow artist and collaborator Cy Fi, who shot initial footage and encouraged it to be built upon. From there, Gleix began manually cutting & warping the original footage to fit a consistent tempo. After building the audio and video in late 2017, it sat dormant for a few years. Once the idea of releasing it came back up, he was able to take some of the knowledge gained working in visuals, and add a system of real-time effects on top of it all.”

Gleix also had this to say about the song, “I think it’s easy to end up inadvertently working through issues while focusing on detailed or tedious tasks. You get into a sort of trance. In the more rhythmically complex pieces I’ve put together I might be listening to the same bar over and over for half an hour before moving on, trying to weigh what sounds best in the moment with what works best contextually. The process feels analogous to thinking about problems that exist in the present moment; thinking about what to do about them now, what decisions make the most sense given what’s already happened, and how to make the transition into whatever comes next as smooth as possible. Slowly piecing together breaks is a very zen process and a sort of therapy for me I guess, despite how chaotic the end result can be.”

If you’re familiar with both prepared piano and breakbeats, you probably have an idea of what to expect, and this song delivers. It’s equal parts gorgeous and dizzying. Check out the video below…