MAXIMILIAN — Mikrokosmos EP. 4 — EVIDEON Studio Records

Mikrokosmos EP. 4 finds MAXIMILIAN continuing his ongoing excavation of house music's formative vocabulary, but there is little sense of archival fetishism here. Released through EVIDEON Studio Records as ESR004, the two-tracker looks firmly towards the mid-90s without treating the period as a museum piece. Instead, its appeal lies in how naturally its ingredients—soft chords, clipped drum programming, rolling basslines and strategically placed vocal fragments—can still function in a contemporary club environment. The result is a record that understands nostalgia less as imitation than as a production language.

“Engel”, the A-side, is the clearest expression of that philosophy. Running at 120 BPM, it occupies a patient middle ground between deep house warmth and the more functional side of classic UK house. The drums have the kind of understated snap that makes older house records so durable: nothing is over-designed, and the groove is allowed to develop through repetition rather than constant intervention. MAXIMILIAN's approach is particularly effective in the low end, where the bass does not simply support the rhythm but gradually becomes part of its physical character.

There is also something pleasingly restrained about the melodic material. Rather than pushing towards euphoric chord progressions, Mikrokosmos EP. 4 works with suggestion. The soft harmonic elements provide atmosphere without dominating the rhythm section, leaving enough negative space for the track to breathe. That balance is central to the record's charm: it sounds melodic, but never overly melodic; raw, but not deliberately lo-fi.

The B-side, “Diabelli”, runs at 119 BPM and follows the same broad vocabulary, giving the record a sense of continuity rather than presenting two unrelated exercises. Both tracks are described by distributors as drawing on mid-90s UK house, with vocal samples acting as an additional rhythmic and textural component.

What makes the release especially convincing is its physical presentation. Pressed as a 180g, vinyl-only 12", the record belongs to a strand of contemporary house production that still sees the format as part of the music rather than simply its container. The technical credits reinforce that analogue-minded approach: mixing is credited to Soundrays in Germany, mastering to Analogcut Mastering, and the record is pressed and distributed by Desslab in Italy.

EVIDEON's Mikrokosmos series has increasingly established itself around this dialogue between early-'90s house and modern production, with later entries moving through deep house, acid house, Detroit and Chicago references.  Mikrokosmos EP. 4 sits comfortably at the centre of that trajectory. It doesn't attempt to reinvent house music; instead, it demonstrates how much can still be achieved by understanding why its basic components worked in the first place.

There is no unnecessary spectacle here. Just drums, bass, chords, samples and space, assembled with enough patience to let the groove do the talking. In an era when retro house can too easily become a collection of obvious signifiers, MAXIMILIAN's restraint is what makes Mikrokosmos EP. 4 feel convincing.

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