A year and a half after its first release, Pilote, Syrinx Music is back with another V/A release, Ballast. Meanwhile, Syrinx set various events up in the Paris area, and took great care of this new EP. Just as the device it takes its name from, Ballast aims to find a balance in contrast, in line with Syrinx’s aesthetics: an open vision of electronic music, linking both club & experimental dimensions. On Ballast, this contrast goes with the idea of duality. The A Side of the vinyl (pressed as a dubplate in a very limited edition) gathers three artists of the most adventurous side of the French bass scene. Cyberlife kicks things up with an atmospheric and aerial breakbeat track, which melts into Fechos’ (a member of the SeekSickSound crew) « Fire Famine », which goes for crazy breaks and a self-evolving melody. The founder of Virtual Forest Records, Fluid Matter experiments with grime and trap on « Jagged Peaks », with its minimalist rhythmic structure, hardcore kicks and unsettling melodic lines. Side B slowly advances towards abstraction and experimentation. Abstraction Mathématique expresses its percussive inventivity with « Il Fait Souvent Le Même Rêve Que Verlaine »’s cinematic atmospherics. Hourvari mixes the double bass with electronics, leaning on the dark side with « Parade », a track that slowly progresses towards drone. The EP comes to an end with Dress Rehearsals, who contribute « Confluences Des Cordes », melting acoustic & electronic sounds, light & darkness, peaceful ambient & noisy outbursts. Ballast seeks both eclecticism and cohesion, each track flowing, stylistically, towards the next one, while the overall line remains open from breaks to drone, from grime to IDM. This V/A release also comes with an artwork hand-drawn by Cath’rin, which was then transformed through AI. It will soon be following by a new series of solo Eps on Syrinx.