Berlin-based producer Anil Chawla has spent the best part of a decade refining the Amotik project’s singular take on techno: hypnotic, drum-led and largely free of melodic decoration. Daya is his debut for Ellen Allien’s BPitch Control, a four-track EP of rolling percussion and sub-bass pressure whose title—Sanskrit for “kindness”—hints at a warmth the record keeps carefully hidden.
Opening track Baya establishes the formula immediately. A dry, tightly-wound kick locks into a bed of shakers and rim hits, and across its five and a half minutes Chawla adds and removes layers of percussion with real patience, letting a sub bass slip in around the midpoint to add weight without ever drawing attention to itself. Nothing about the track shouts, but the groove is unshakeable.
Daya is Amotik's debut release on Ellen Allien's BPitch Control label.
Title track Daya is the EP’s warmest moment, the percussion rolling forward whilst a muted, distant melody circles above the groove—the closest the record comes to a hook. Aage, “forward”, is more urgent, its hats tighter and its momentum more insistent, though the propulsion never tips into aggression. The track titles, drawn from Hindustani, lend the record a linguistic thread that matches its steady, forward-walking motion.
Final track Peeche (“backward”) closes things in typically understated fashion, stripping the formula back to its essentials and letting the hypnotic pulse carry the final six minutes. It’s a fitting end to an EP that understands restraint as a feature rather than a flaw.
With Daya, Amotik makes a convincing case for his sound on a label that has championed minimal techno since its 1999 founding. It’s not a record that grabs you; it works on you slowly, and that’s precisely the point. Played loud in the right room, these four tracks do exactly what they set out to do, and there’s a quiet triumph in that.
