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Recommended by us on 7th February 2012
...according to our Mike on Tue 07 Feb, 2012.
The excellent and not particularly prolific Underwater Peoples have sent us two twelves this week. One from Family Portrait and this odd boy from Sad City. Funny little one, this. I'm reviewing it at 45 after fruitless minutes spent trying to figure out for certain what speed it's meant to go on. What I'm getting is some quite organic-sounding minimal explorations, with the opener 'Shell (Or Wash)' giving us a submerged, dubby take on two repeated chords which shimmer glassily throughout as the tones develop through flange and processing over an insistent pulsing beat, while the second track introduces a stumbling backwards groove over weird processed chimes to good effect. The flipside opens with the analogue pulse of Jaya, which is then joined by an Eastern-sounding sax to create a combined tone which is disarmingly similar to bagpipes, accompanied by what is by some distance the most grooving beat on the EP. This track's brilliant; half minimal tone experiment, half dancefloor-filler. The collection is then rounded off by 'Twilight (Or Tightrope)', an understated soup of ancient-sounding tinkly piano coupled with a crescendo of reverbed drums which sounds like an ancient jazz recording which has been salvaged and souped up for the post-dub generation by The Caretaker on uppers.
We first came across Sad City's (aka Gary Caruth) distinctive and unique sounds through our wonderful friend Julian Lynch after the pair met at university in Aberdeen, Scotland. Not long after hearing Gary's music, we featured one of his tracks on our first label sampler (Summertime Showcase) and have been anticipating a proper release ever since. Gary's been involved in deep, layered electronic music since his teenage years. Growing up just outside Belfast, surrounded by his Dad's old 7" disco records (his Dad was a cross- community DJ during the height of the Troubles), Gary became fascinated by the production techniques of Cerrone and Giorgio Moroder. Over the years he became increasingly intrigued by minimalist composition, and his exposure to the musique concrète aesthetic and process eventually led him to experiment with reel-to-reel tape recording, sampling, and the use of high and low level frequencies. That concept - of finding and discovering new and organic ways to create music - lies at the very heart of this record. "Shell (or Wash)", cinematically creeps through waves of flange and reverb, finally phasing into an incredible swell of unified, wavering noise. "Night Time Trail" follows on with the shimmer and stabs of carefully manipulated sounds sustained by a steady house/dub groove. "Jaya" then loops and merges a far-east sax line that gains intensity as the rhythm builds around the layers, ultimately breaking down to reveal a mesmerising freeform sax flutter. The closer, "Twilight (or Tightrope)" concludes the record in perfectly understated fashion, looping a dreamy piano line that washes and echoes alongside an emerging rhythm track.
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Norman Records,
Unit 20, Croydon House,
Croydon Street,
Leeds,
LS11 9RT, UK.
Tel/fax: (+44) 0113 245 4399
Email: phil@normanrecords.com
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