Evade - Destroy & Dream (CD)

This CD has a really lovely fold-out cover which won’t fit in your CD rack and doesn’t make it super easy to figure out which track you’re on, with the lyrics in their original Chinese(?) and with English translations. Evade are a trio of poet/singer Sonia Ka Ian Lao, guitarist Brandon L and producer/sound artist Faye Choi, from China's former Portuguese colony of Macau, and the music on the CD varies from creepy, detailed, dark dub techno to ethereal summery dreampop weirdness, always striking a balance between laid back melodic drift and awkward, creaking, fluttering, whirling dark ambience and noise.

The cues seem to be coming from the laid-back post-Burial crowd like Clams Casino and Balam Acab, the languid, spacious, detailed sci-fi dubscapes of the Moritz Von Oswald Trio, and the creeping nostalgic awkwardness of the likes of The Caretaker or Demdike Stare, but coupled with some almost new agey good vibes for this awkward, disconnected, sinister loveliness. There’s some quite heady, sensous grooves and smoky melodies, but also passages of haunted ambient weirdness, making for an intriguing and well-formed aesthetic for total late-night immersion, equal parts awkward and seductive.