Text by Eleni Maragkou
A great club night or live set is often defined by its storytelling and worldbuilding, which are not merely sonic but increasingly imbued with visual elements that allow for intimate, immersive entanglement moments. This sweet spot between mind-bending visuals and face-melting sounds is epitomised within the live performances of Cortical, which manage to deliver experiences that are as cerebral as they are visceral. The ingredients: thick, squelching bass, relentless kick patterns, distorted cybernetic landscapes—together coalescing into surreal, machinic carnage, both otherworldly and ferociously raw.
After a standout debut show at Sónar in Barcelona and an electrifying follow-up at Lunchmeat in Prague, the enigmatic duo, composed of Sevi Iko Dømochevsky and Daniel Benza, have left quite an impression, with fragments of raw footage from their first shows steadily gaining traction on social media. Indeed, their debut EP, Wretched Patterns and Terrible Mistakes, released on December 5 through Plasma Sources, marks the crescendo of months of building anticipation amongst those in the know.
We have an obvious emotional spectrum we want to visit with our music, so we try to work on the sound palette beforehand and build systems that generate those sounds; then we just wait for happy accidents and organise them afterwards, the duo say, explaining their approach to worldbuilding. Drawing from a broad palette of 1990s maximalist influences, including metal and hardcore, early cyberspace and video game culture, Cortical bring a distinctly cinematic sensibility.
Their artistic name is partially inspired by David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, a Y2K science fiction horror film released in 1999 which has some of Dømochevsky’s favourite scenes and ideas ever. In the movie, “Cortical Systematics” appears as a shadowy video game company responsible for developing and producing highly immersive virtual reality games. [Video artist and music video director] Chris Cunningham and Cronenberg are some of our top influences, says Dømochevsky. I discovered Cronenberg very late in my life, but somehow, his work has massively influenced me without knowing it.
With Wretched Patterns and Terrible Mistakes, Cortical explore fragmented and evolving soundscapes. This fragmentary quality is present in all the media Dømochevsky & Daniel Benza consume and love. We love to be taken on an unpredictable journey full of intensity, plus we also are not big fans of genre puritanism in the art and music world, they say. We always try to break and recombine stuff a bit, just give enough to people so that they can hold onto something and vibe to it but keep the spice running. Visually, they follow a similar approach. We always try to break the image enough so that things are not obvious or easy to read, and we like to keep a bit of mystery.
Their shows are defined by hyper-detailed, stroboscopic visuals that verge on brain-melting intensity. With a foundation in visual arts and 3D design, the duo constantly strives to recreate lifelike details in their work. However, they acknowledge that specific micro-level nuances and split-second subtleties remain elusive in CGI alone. For this show, we wanted to push past those limitations, integrating lights and lasers into the overall design and stepping out of our comfort zone, they explain.
The setup for their live show is deceptively simple yet meticulously crafted: a perpetually spinning sculpture, a thoroughly programmed LED strobe positioned behind it, and two sharp green laser beams aimed at the sculpture from either side. This scene is captured in real-time with a Blackmagic camera and fed into Resolume for live processing. For the sculpture’s design and the laser housings, the duo collaborated with Oscar Carretero, with additional support from friends who assisted in perfecting the lighting setup.
Hovering between contemplative exploration and deconstructed dancefloor sensibility, Wretched Patterns and Terrible Mistakes is a reflection of the duo’s genre-agnostic worldbuilding, which they compare to a well-crafted recipe: You need a varied, stimulating set of ingredients and really nice sauce over a solid and filling base, it’s a matter of balance. […] Imagine trying to eat ten boiled potatoes without salt or a sauce… Well, that’s exactly how we feel about most club nights, they say conspicuously. Some of their favourite chefs? Mumdance, Arca, Logos, or FiS.
Cortical is not a stranger to collaboration, having worked with an impressive and eclectic array of artists, including Arca, Skrillex and Holly Herndon. The cool thing about working with super-talented artists is that you reconfigure your approach to art every time, which leads to huge growth. Each artist is a different universe with a radically different approach, but in each one, there is a piece of wisdom that can resonate with you and be absorbed just by interacting with the person. According to Cortical, overthinking is the death of art; collaboration helps make the artistic process more subconscious and flow-driven. Focusing on removing obstacles so you can avoid thinking is a winning strategy, they say.
So, what lies ahead? For one, several records will be released on some of their favourite labels and a few exciting festival bookings, about which they remain tight-lipped. In the long term, we don’t have big pretentious goals. What will happen is impossible to predict and stupid to assume; it will just become a grip for anxiety, they say. However, we aim to perform as much as possible and use the highest quality systems possible. We love touring and big sound systems. This feels exactly right.
