Altered Zones

National Park System, the solo project of Princeton-educated programming prodigy Nicholas Yu, is a dark and gristly blend of club room beats, voluptuous drones, Arabesque flourishes, and noise tantrums. For his first physical release, comically dubbed A Visitor's Guide, this San Francisco enigma taps a granular synthesis program that he designed with his own two cerebral hemispheres (see "Sad and Fucked (Not Moving)", and what appears to be a patchwork of live drums, programmed beats, guitar, and violin. nihiti's Dragan Otasevic, who gave us a history lesson on New York dark techno label/DJ collective Sandwell District last week, sent over the hypnotic "Silver Miner" to introduce the EP, which drops on his own lo bit landscapes imprint in June. --Emilie Friedlander, Altered Zones

MP3: National Park System: "Silver Miner"

A Visitor's Guide EP is out in June on lo bit landcapes. Listen to more NPS on SoundCloud