Thursday, July 2, 2009

Cyclic Defrost Magazine

Cyclic Defrost Magazine

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Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue (Warp/Inertia)

Posted: 02 Jul 2009 05:08 AM PDT

Whilst the recycling aspects of post-modernism can leads to lots of lazy garbage, in the right hands, such as those of one Stephen James Wilkinson, the results can be simply dazzling. Holed up in his studio in Wolverhampton, England, Wilkinson has made a handful of releases for Mush Records and now joins Warp’s journey from iconic 90s electronica into kaleidoscopes of indie-electronic offshoots, with this album. And it comes out only 3 months after his latest Mush release – that the quality control is so high with that kind of output rate is quite remarkable.

It really is a grab bag of ideas. At different times, bursts of pastoral English psychedelia of the late 60s, 70s funk and disco, crunchy chiptunes, slick R’n'B, glitchy electronica, West Coast 70s cool, abstract hiphop and folktronica can all be heard. But what holds it all together is a gauzy, semi-hauntological haze blanketing everything. Like the drum loops in ‘Jealous Of Roses’ which sound like they’re coming from the club next door while the guitar and vocals are being recorded echoing around the bathroom of this one. Or the opening guitar of ‘Cry! Baby!’ resolutely lo-fi before the slightly of kilter rhythms spread across the stereo spectrum to underpin the 60s folksy lead guitars and keys, only for bursts of distorted sub-bass to try and grab a foothold. Or ‘Sugarette’s reverb drowned synth washes which frame 8-bit blips and staccato analogue bass synth noodlings. Beautiful stuff.

When I read back through those descriptions, it makes it sound like a sprawling mess. But it most definitely isn’t. The aforementioned use of post-modern recycling is used here not as pastiche, but as elements to be bent into the shapes that Bibio desires. Yes, they remind you of other things, but they are never merely a symbol of those other things, they are building blocks which are used to create a new, cohesive whole. Ambivalence Avenue may be a title trying to play it cool, but Wilkinson sounds excited by the possibilities of music from all over, and the results are themselves supremely exciting.

Adrian Elmer

Leonel Castillo – El Nino (Greener)

Posted: 02 Jul 2009 05:07 AM PDT

The psychedelic techno produced and championed by the likes of Donatto Dozzy and Cio D’or is fast becoming one of the most influential sounds in (underground) dance music. Informed by the heavier strains of post-Basic Channel dub techno and the linearity of trance, this ‘headfuck techno’, as the blogs put it, delights in long, slowly evolving tracks slotted into long, tightly controlled DJ sets. This 12″ by Argentinian mountain dwelling recluse Leonel Castillo adheres to this structure, at least in part, whilst injecting a subtle touch of Cadenza-esque swing.

It’s the dark yet kooky title track that most captivates, ten-minutes of warped clanging and dank reverberation, wrapped around a warped passage of German speech by Der Himmer über Berlin. This functions like vocals in Thomas Brinkmann, looped into a rhythmic device (particularly effective to those not understanding German), chunks ricocheting off into delayed abstractions, with the sung nursery-rhyme section particularly disorienting. ‘Luvia de Estrellas’ is more straightforward, tinny arpeggios morphing into bounding synth stabs, with a twinkling break like Matthew Johnson. Lucas Mari remixes both, available digital-only, turning the former into droning ambience, and the latter into staggered breakbeat, but neither match the hypnotic power of the originals.

Joshua Meggitt

at 5:33 PM