Cyclic Defrost Magazine

Harmonic 313 – When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence (Warp / Inertia)

Posted: 27 Mar 2009 04:39 AM PDT

Harmonic 313

While the numerical reference contained in the moniker of Mark Pritchard’s latest musical project pays homage to Detroit, this debut album from Harmonic 313 in fact sees him paying to tribute to UK-born ‘bass’ music, tracing a distinct lineage from hiphop and electro straight into more contemporary dubstep and garage sounds. Indeed, compared to the icy, IDM-electro centred tracks gathered on last year’s ‘EP1′, ‘When Machines Exceed…’ represents a considerably more visceral and sub bass-quaking proposition. Curiously however, given Pritchard’s local associations with nights such as Void and the recent Hyperdub event, it’s not a collection that’s as touched by the influence of dubstep as you might expect, and while it certainly flirts with the form on tracks such as slinking, delay-drenched electro opener ‘Dirtbox’, it never really becomes subsumed in it. Indeed, the predominant emphasis here falls far more upon hiphop-indebted sounds, the boom-bap meets sine-tone bass synths of ‘Cyclotron’ and the clattering drum breaks of ‘Battlestar’, featuring Slum Village’s Phat Kat and Elzhi in sharp form providing a good case in point. Elsewhere, ‘EP1’s highlight track ‘Word Problems’ makes a welcome reappearance, pitting circuit-bent ‘Speak N’ Spell’ toys against swirling synths and lurching, headnod beats, before the gorgeous ‘Falling Away’ offers up one of this album’s most understatedly spectacular moments, with fellow expat Steve Spacek contributing his pitchshifted soul vocals to a glittering backdrop of clicking, metronomic rhythms and distorted sub bass swells. In many senses, it’s typical of the laidback, after-hours vibe that permeates throughout the 15 tracks gathered here, making this a collection perhaps best suited towards post-club listening. Well worth investigating.

Chris Downton

Paniyolo - I’m home (Schole)

Posted: 27 Mar 2009 04:35 AM PDT

i'm home

Paniyolo establishes his own signature of intimacy on his debut effort for Schole. A careful blend of imagination and memory, cradling remote images in clearly delineated motifs and melodies with one hand and populating them with more distinctive bursts of fine rhythmic detail with the other, the disc soothes and stimulates the creative psyche, conveying worldly sentiments indirectly, by first touching upon the whitebread of the everyday.

It stands largely outside any critical consideration, resting more on the primitivity of the imagination than any overt expression of skill. If its tendency to dive so readily into a dossier of pastel drawings sometimes ties it down to a soporific and foreseeable oneirism, Paniyolo’s hand often makes itself felt just enough, interrupting the self-satisfied progression of some of the tracks, and directing the proceedings outward, toward other, more exploratory miniatures. The intimate, threadbare guitar plucking strung over “Snow Country”, for example, paired with solitary piano chords, and a solemn whisk of ambience, shows a particular sensitivity to pace and spacing.

Paniyolo moves in this direction on a number of occasions, demonstrating an increasingly simple yet elegant instrumental palette. When he doesn’t make use of subtraction, though, his knack for addition proves equally capable: the layered guitar harmonics and pizzicato violin on “Room”, for instance, build and eventually resolve into seesawing lines. Ready-made garments drape over this work, but Paniyolo demonstrates an intuitive sense for these spaces and, on occasion, even escapes from their identity toward hazier areas of allure.

Max Schaefer