Music by Akumu

Here are some nice things people had to say about “Fluxes” when it came out.

Selected reviews of “Fluxes”:

Eye Weekly – Toronto
Composer Guy Klucevsek described minimalism as “the search for the unknown inside the familiar.” The brittle pops and ringing feedback that form the sonic vocabulary of Akumu’s second album, Fluxes, are indisputably familiar to click ‘n’ cut-inundated bedroom electronica fans but the results are thrillingly foreign. Where Oval might contrast the chattering in “Evovle (Part 2)” against a wooly white noise, Toronto’s Deane Hughes presents them starkly with a handful of low bell tones to support their sickly crackles. Tracks like “Quietly Disruptive” evoke sheer dread, which is impressive considering the absence of shock treatment (ahem, Merzbow). Your iPod’s shuffle function would be wrong to put this on while you shop for groceries, but Fluxes deserves high marks in the ongoing competition for Best Soundtrack to an Imaginary David Cronenberg Movie.
(Dave Morris)

The Wire UK
Minimalist aesthetics have a way of highlighting the most distracting irrelevancies. The information that Toronto’s Deane Hughes has sourced material for his second album from binaural field recordings made in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico may excite interest; and the handcrafted Japanese paper gatefold it comes in may also delight. However, it’s the foregrounding and fine grain he brings to some of his sounds that will keep the senses most alert. Raising neat hackles across the skin that is by now used to being stretched to the digital limits of elasticity, Hughes offers a little more than the usual laptop protractions. Watch out for a slow-beat version of the same material at a later date.
(Ken Hollings)

Montreal Mirror
The latest ambient, zero-BPM effort from Toronto musician and sound designer Deane Hughes, aka Akumu, is gloriously meticulous. Build on recordings from trips to Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, Hughes’ music reaches deep to immerse the listener in the dreamlike bustlings of the jungle floor. Instead of insects and lizards, Hughes’ microcosm crackles with digital chirps and analog hisses, synthetic sinewaves take the place of tropical winds and samples of Mexican markets and Mayan preachers are transmogrified into ethereal drones and alien textures. Excellent. 8/10.
(Raf Katigbak)

Hour Magazine – Montreal
Toronto’s Deane Hughes and Jeff McMurrich team up to produce 49 minutes of dark, ambient soundscapes using field recordings from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico (though it sounds more like the dark side of Pluto). Drones and static undulate slowly, creating a state of digital tension; faraway voices, sudden metallic boings and insect-like clicking, panning from left to right, life the listener into an altered state. While this certainly ain’t relaxing (it gave me nightmares when I tried sleeping to it), it’s not as disjointed as so much glitchy, minimal ambient music is nowadays. A lullaby for a homicidal 23rd century robot.
(Steve Lalla)