Fireground – Refreshing Part 2

As with the band’s 2023 release of the same name, Refreshing Part 2 is a decisive and fierce collection of percussive techno that nonetheless travels its path with a heightened level of funkiness.

The Italian duo describe the concept behind this collection as being “not about resetting, but about balancing. Refreshing means reconnecting with the present and with the future…focusing on one’s own way in order to prevent the flow from becoming automatic, uncontrolled, and without orientation. It is more a direction than a path.”

The four tracks on the 12” are hypnotic dives into a full spectrum of club music: the rhythms and sound design guiding the subconscious into visions of past, present and future intermingled, a reminder that all moments co-exist simultaneously.

Side A passes from the stripped-down intensity of The Way through to Elisir (Elixir), which manages to pull off a trick of feeling light and floaty while maintaining the power of its predecessor. The flip side opens with the forceful drive of Activate before making way to the

percussive elasticity of Family Tree, a track which closes out the EP by recalling, in both name and sound, how that which came before deeply affects the now, though often in ways only subliminally perceived.

Digital-only track Fixed in Flux continues this concept, and the overall themes of Refreshing Part 2, with further evocations of intent and movement; remaining present in change, without resisting it, yet without dissolving into it.