Six years after his well-received album on Tympanik Audio, Belgian artist Fractional joins Raumklang for a sweeping one-of-a-kind electronica album, combining strong conceptual notions with an immense physical force. “Tepes” is of course the family name of Vlad, i.e. Dracula, and many sound samples from old vampire movies have been used and reworked in the process of composition, branding the release with a strong cinematic quality. Having made himself a name for tracks like an emotional rollercoaster ride, juxtaposing fierce breakcore outbursts with deep pits of melancholia, Fractional further formalizes his unique artistic expression on “Tepes”: The contrasts are as extreme as the peaks and valleys of the Carpathian mountains; mighty overridden monoliths of dubstep wobble bass crash and lay open the base of crackling sound debris, the hyped anxiety of rhythmic structures collapses into the agony and silent hum of the album’s 9 minute centerpiece “des”. Deceptively stimulating and dangerously subversive, expect a good 50 minutes of intense listening that might induce selective perception – and an addictive urge for instant replay.