UNTER STRØM Turn Industrial Pressure and Melodic Release Into Between Forms

UNTER STRØM’s Between Forms feels like a project title that actually describes the music. Across the EP, Alex Gonzales and John Kunkel keep pulling the listener between different states: club pressure and headphone detail, mechanical rhythm and melodic lift, industrial edge and something more open at the center.

That is the part that makes the project worth paying attention to. Gonzales brings the darker, tour-tested force of Matte Blvck, while Kunkel’s work across The New Division and John Grand gives the project a cleaner melodic and electronic sense of writing. Together, they do not land on a simple middle point. They keep the music unstable in the right way, letting each track push against the others.

Between Forms is not trying to be a one-lane techno or one-lane melodic house act.

It is built from a shared interest in music that can hold a room physically while still giving the production enough detail to reward closer listening. That can be a hard balance to pull off, because the moment a track gets too refined it can lose the dirt, and the moment it gets too heavy it can lose the emotional thread.

UNTER STRØM spend the EP working inside that narrow space.

“Orynth” Gives the Project Its First Clear Shape

“Orynth” works as a strong introduction because it lays out the duo’s basic language without giving everything away at once. Gonzales started the opening movements, then Kunkel expanded the track with time-stretched atmospheres and more intricate melodic detail. That process comes through in the final record, which feels like it began from a simple spark and then gradually widened into something heavier.

The track moves with enough rhythmic drive to make its club intent clear, but the drama sits in the layers around it. The production does not feel flat or overly polished. It has movement inside it, with melodic elements that keep opening up and pulling back.

Aaron Short’s mix gives “Orynth” enough scale without sanding off the edge. That is an important distinction for this project. UNTER STRØM are clearly interested in a bigger, more cinematic form of dark electronic music, but they still need the tracks to keep their grit.

That connection between darker club rhythm and wider melodic writing also brought to mind my coverage of Re.You’s “Higher” on Younion, another record where the emotional pull depends on keeping the groove moving while the atmosphere thickens around it.

“Fold” Shows the Duo at Their Most Restrained

“Fold” is where UNTER STRØM lean further into minimal techno pressure. The track was first built by Gonzales during a flight to Calgary for a festival performance, which fits how it feels: compact, focused, and shaped by movement that keeps tightening as it goes.

The low end is the main engine. Pulsing bass plucks, mechanical percussion, and darker production details give “Fold” a late-night quality, but the track does not chase a huge release. It holds back. That restraint is what makes it work.

Kunkel’s contribution expands the track without altering its original shape. His melodic instincts add detail around the edges, but “Fold” remains one of the EP’s most controlled moments. It is less about lift and more about pressure.

That kind of track can be easy to underrate on first listen because it does not announce itself with a big hook. But in the middle of a set, the discipline matters. “Fold” gives Between Forms a darker backbone.

“Fragment” Feels Like the Project Becoming Real in the Room

“Fragment” has the best backstory on the EP because it marks the first time Gonzales and Kunkel wrote a track entirely together in the same room. After developing earlier material remotely, they spent two days at Sound Factory in Los Angeles with no hard deadline and no need to force the music into a pre-decided shape.

You can hear that looseness in the track. “Fragment” does not sit in one repeated loop for too long. It keeps finding new sections, almost like the arrangement keeps noticing another door it wants to open.

That could have made the track feel scattered, but it lands because the duo follow the energy of the session rather than over-editing it into something too neat. It was originally going to stay as a live ID, which makes sense. The track has that quality of something built to test a room first, then reveal itself as a release later.

For anyone who cares about how electronic records change once they enter a performance setup, my article on Meris Ottobit X gets at a related production idea. The most interesting parts often happen when sound is allowed to move, bend, degrade, and misbehave instead of staying too clean.

“Stumbling” Closes the EP With Its Most Exposed Moment

“Stumbling” is the fourth and final piece of Between Forms, and it is also the most emotionally open track here. It came together quickly during an afternoon that was not meant to become a proper writing block. A new project was opened, an arpeggio appeared, a rhythm followed, and within a few hours most of the record was already there.

The important part is that they barely changed it afterward. Months passed, the catalog kept growing, and “Stumbling” stayed close to its first shape. That gives the track a different kind of presence than the rest of the EP. It feels less constructed and more caught.

The arpeggios shift, the rhythm evolves, and small sounds rise from beneath the surface before disappearing again. It has the movement of a dance record, but it also feels like it is walking slightly away from the room while still hearing the kick behind it.

That is why it works as a closer. “Stumbling” does not end Between Forms by making the EP bigger. It ends it by making the project feel more human.