Mirror

What happens when you start at the end, then go backwards? What happens if you then string that premise along nearly two hours of cinematics? "Mirror" is not just Billain's answer, but his masterpiece.

Billain constructs a world from his "Intro", and from there his imminently creative production takes over. One of the most innovative names in the modern neurofunk scene, Billain navigates the serpentine twists of his story with ease, confidently progressing "Mirror" through a punchy yet thoughtful first movement, a movement that seems so unassuming it would be reasonable - expected, even - to be surprised at the violence that ensues. But by the time the monstrous Magnetude collab and the unsettling Rawtekk feature land, on "Glass Fortress" and "Dystopia" respectively, there's something in the sound that's tense enough to stiffen fingers and curl toes. If, somehow, your disbelief hasn't already been suspended, the 16 minutes of pulsating immersive ambient will force you out of your cynical armour, before "Mirror" reveals its true intentions - and by Gad, are they malicious. What follows is the most calculated, the most vicious ripping apart of a final movement possible, like some kind of warped, bloody assault on a malignant being - an assault that, it seems, fails, leaving "Mirror" as the culmination of a pitiless bloodbath upon the skeleton of a journey that could not overcome it. Indeed, you might say, after bearing witness to this uncompromising odyssey, that Billain has mastered the concept album. Oh, but we're not done yet. Far from it. To be a concept album is one thing - to be a palindromic concept album is another entirely. The story I have just outlined is, in fact, not the story "Mirror" seems to portray. But, then, did I make up that entire story? Of course not. "Mirror" begins from its "Outro", and works its way backwards through its journey, an explorer corrupting chronology at the chime of the clock, marking the arrival of tomorrow into yesterday to land upon "Intro" as the final track. And it works. What this album can pull off, it can pull off the same backwards. Forward and reverse playthroughs, though positing entirely different experiences, are but a reflection of one another. Yet despite being a "Mirror", the reflection is multifaceted. Concept would mean nothing if "Mirror" was not wholly immersive, both ways. But Billain's atmospheric sensibility is unparalleled. For all its harrowing spectacles and destructive neurofunk, for all its ear-annihilating basslines and utterly apocalyptic mixes, "Mirror" respects its story enough to provide an outlook on itself, engaging its dystopian motifs at key intervals in its runtime, reining in the high-octane neurofunk to expand upon its character through ambient, experimental tracks, infused with fluorescent synth melodies and cyberpunk bass hits. We see Billain leverage not just novel production, not just conceptual brilliance, not just hemorrhaging bassline black magic, but also the ability to create a wholly immersive product on every level.

"Mirror" is certainly not for the faint of heart. In fact, it's only really for those who are willing to withstand two hours of raging neurofunk from front to back. But, if you find yourself being a part of that audience, Billain has constructed something impossible to overlook. Because even though "Mirror" runs into some technical problems at times - some of the mixes can feel painfully overblown, whether intentional or not, and at points the chaos of the neurofunk can feel, ironically, a little familiar - it's the only album I know that can, on such an ambitious scale, execute successfully such an ambitious concept.