Tangent returns with new album ‘Disclosure’

Based in Haarlem in The Netherlands, Dutch electronic duo Tangent view sound as a landscape for constant transformation. The project brings together the talents of Ralph van Reijendam and Robbert Kok, two musicians whose shared interest with sonic experimentation has bloomed into a shared sonic vision that balances electronic aesthetic with the unpredictable qualities of more organic textures. Their music forms in the overlap between ambient electronics, IDM, glitch, industrial sound design and cinematic atmosphere, building immersive environments where fragile melodies arise from distortion and carefully programmed rhythms move through vast expanses.

Since their earliest releases, Tangent have treated contrast as a defining creative principle; warmth and beauty exist with darker, dystopian tones, while ghostly synth washes and dense electronic layers create a sense of matter forming and collapsing in the same moment. The duo allows their sound to constantly shift, dissolve and reassemble, creating compositions that feel like entire environments packed full of twists and turns, never settling into a predictable equilibrium.

Their steadfast mission for exploration has shaped a catalogue spanning releases on Mindtrick Records, Tympanik Audio and n5MD, the label that has become Tangent’s current creative home. Albums including Transience, Collapsing Horizons, Approaching Complexity and Evolutionary Cycles capture the duo’s developing relationship with atmosphere, rhythm and increasingly intricate electronic structures. Acquiesce, their 2021collaboration with Mike Cadoo’s Dryft, further revealed their ability to explore different creative connections, while 2023’s Presence Reverts to Absence continues the wider journey through their distinctive sonic sphere.

Driving Tangent’s identity is the combination of Ralph and Robbert’s different musical and technical backgrounds. Their experience across sound design, electronic production and more extreme forms of music has helped map out a balance between intricate construction and physical intensity, resulting in music that can feel at once precisely engineered and surprising, its structures constantly shifting beneath the surface.

Now, after three years away, Tangent return with Disclosure, their seventh studio album and a surprise release through n5MD. Landing after a period marked by personal setbacks and creative dormancy, the record reconnects with the darker electronic environments that have long defined the duo while introducing a more engrossing dimension through an expanded use of modular synthesis. The familiar sense of isolation and tension remains but the sounds themselves possess a greater physical presence, bringing new sounds to the project’s carefully constructed landscapes.

Title track “Disclosure” forms with the ominous bubble of synth notes, gradually expanding with drifting textures to instil a sense of gliding motion as the track rolls into a glitching, beat-driven scene where stuttered rhythms propel the track into a moody IDM soundscape. “Absence of Force” brings the elegant twinkle of airy piano plinks before reversed textures and the steady taps of percussion, forming an engaging slice of ambient electronic tinged with bleeping tones and shuffling rhythms which puts Tangent’s creativity and sound design flair on full display.

“Unfound Existence” grows with subtly hazy tones as the soft pulse of drums maintains a smooth forward momentum, slowly building with glitching percussion and swelling instrumentation to craft a wholly absorbing listening experience. “Denial” brings mechanical noises and sweeping textures in a gentle arrangement of sweeping ebb and flow that develops with fuzzy aesthetic while leaning into the duo’s penchant to crafting consuming atmosphere and constantly shifting musical experiences. “Vector of Acceleration” starts with hushed notes before brooding tones add to the stripped back arrangement while the track surges towards a gripping finale of stacked industrial elements.

With “Sonoluminescence,” quiet key tones usher in a dreamy scene that builds with murky percussive patterns, casting a hypnotic listening experience from start to finish. Closing the record with “Opposing Forces,” the soothing drift of delicate textures progresses with crisp drums and intricate instrumental flickers to present a memorable and constantly developing finale to Tangent’s incredible new album. With their new release, three years of silence have given way to another shifting electronic landscape and Tangent are once again finding new ways to make it move.

Listen to Disclosure below