Jóhann Friðgeir Jóhannsson says he took his music-making moniker, 7oi, from an attempt to spell his nickname, Jói, on a pocket calculator. Despite this, the music he makes isn’t by any means an exercise in retro 8bit activism. Case in point: his track “Wsps,” the title of which can be read as an attempt to spell the word “wisps” as if it were the name of an Autechre song. That wouldn’t be a far off description. It has the appropriate amount of artful artificiality. It comes across as an approxomation of glistening background ambience that sounds like a purposefully remote simulacrum, a CAD rendering of a beautiful afternoon. It has, of course, none of Autechre’s nervous energy. In its place is a relaxed sensibility, leading to an especially attenuated close that is so quiet and peaceful, it might actually make you a tad anxious.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/7oi. More on 7oi, who is from Ãsafjörður, Iceland, at sevenoi.com</>.