Changes

Mind Against—the Italian brothers Alessandro and Federico Fognini—are the closest thing Afterlife has to a flagship act, so their return to the label with Changes carries a little extra weight. Landing two releases after Recondite’s cavernous Bird at AL050, the two-track EP slots straight back into the imprint’s peak-hour lane: weighty, emotionally-charged melodic techno built for the final stretch of a long night.

Title track Changes gets straight down to business. A rolling, four-to-the-floor kick sits beneath thick, slow-swelling pads that gradually fill the mix, while a distant, wordless vocal drifts in and out of a huge reverb tail. The bassline is patient and muscular, locked in a call-and-response with the chords that keeps the energy simmering rather than spilling over. It’s the kind of record that makes a festival rig sound enormous without ever resorting to cheap theatrics.

Closer is the deeper, longer proposition, stretching past the seven-minute mark with a hypnotic, filtered bassline and sparse, delayed synth stabs. Where the opener reaches, this one holds its breath: the arrangement unfolds at a glacial pace, each new layer—a shaker, a rising pad, a hint of melody—arriving exactly when you’ve stopped expecting it. The payoff, when the track finally opens out around the six-minute mark, is quietly devastating.

With Changes, Mind Against deliver exactly what Afterlife’s followers have come to expect, and that’s no criticism. The brothers know this sound inside out, and they execute it with real craft: cavernous production, immaculate drum work and melodies that tug without ever turning sentimental. In a label catalogue built on moments like this, this EP earns its place without breaking a sweat.