What’s the point in producing under a new alias if you’re not even going to try to play the little game? This EP was sent to me as “MSF aka Donnacha Costello” — where’s the fun in that? Released on his already-established Look Long label, MSF doesn’t really sound all that different from the music under his given name. Costello is a producer who works in many modes and styles, but has given into the tempting world of compartmentalization surprisingly few times in his long career. Why he’s done so here is rather puzzling. Truth be told, the Meaning Formation EP doesn’t sound too far removed from his last album Before We Say Goodbye, an album that was panned for being safe and boring as much as it was praised for being mature, lived-in, and melodically brilliant (full disclosure: I fall into the latter category). What we have is three techno tracks elegantly adorned with that album’s warmly glowing analogue pulse and inviting melodies.
That being said, these three tracks seem concerned more with current goings-on in techno than the blissful ignorance of Goodbye, but only slightly. “Meaning Formation” features the same sustained pads and electrically-charged spikes of synths of so much of 2010’s most acclaimed techno, but it’s viewed through Costello’s characteristically optimistic lens, dressed up with reassuring old school hi-hats. The same goes for “Signification,” which could be a blacklit proto-acid anthem if it weren’t dressed up in bright synths and a particularly ecstatic breakdown. Donnacha clearly remains Donnacha; don’t let the name change fool you, his M.O. is mostly the same. It’s not like that’s ever a bad thing — few producers share his talent for mixing the danceable with the hummable, nor for finding so much depth in a comfortably familiar realm of sounds and structures.
