Gerritt Wittmer, the artist behind "In Spite of Dreams", delivers a debut that feels like stumbling through a cybernetic wasteland - raw, dissonant, and strangely cathartic. "subject:empty" is not an album for everyone, but for those attuned to its frequencies, it offers a visceral, unfiltered journey into the crevices of industrial hip-hop, reimagined through a lens of destruction and decay.

The opening track, “Tesrec”, sets the tone with its three-minute assault of distorted beats and guttural bass, a kind of invitation to a world where the machinery of music has been stripped down to its barest, most brutal parts. It’s industrial in the truest sense - raw material manipulated into chaotic beauty - but with the rhythmic undercurrent of hip-hop threading it all together.

The real chaos, though, unfolds in “Hard Life” and “Ate Up”. These tracks feel less like compositions and more like sonic collisions - fragmented, aggressive, and unapologetically messy. Wittmer doesn’t merely dabble in distortion; he revels in it, crafting a soundscape that’s as much about destruction as creation.

But this isn’t chaos for chaos’ sake. Beneath the layers of noise lies a strange kind of poetry. Tracks like “And Us in the Snow, Stars in My Head” offer moments of fractured introspection. The title itself suggests a delicate, almost dreamlike quality that contrasts sharply with the relentless onslaught of sound. It’s in these moments of contrast that "subject:empty" reveals its depth - a meditation on subjective realities, where beauty and brutality coexist in uneasy harmony.

“Ever Increasing Free Will” is perhaps the most ambitious track on the album. Clocking in at over five minutes, it unfolds like a dystopian narrative, its distorted beats and eerie synths painting a picture of a world teetering on the brink. By the time we reach “The Boy Who Could Die,” the album’s closer, we’re left with a sense of unresolved tension, as if Wittmer is less interested in providing answers than in raising questions.

Wittmer’s work under "In Spite of Dreams" feels deeply personal, a manifestation of his subjective reality transformed into sound. The mastering by Tom Baker lends a sharpness to the chaos, ensuring that every crackle, every glitch, every burst of noise is as intentional as it is impactful.

"subject:empty" might alienate as many listeners as it captivates, but that’s precisely its power. It refuses to conform, to compromise, to explain itself. It’s an album that thrives in the empty spaces between genres, between beauty and brutality, between dreams and destruction.

For those willing to step into Wittmer’s fractured world, "subject:empty" offers a listening experience that is as unsettling as it is exhilarating - a stark reminder that even in destruction, there is art.