Label: Sub Rosa/Quatermass Format: CD, Limited LP
Simon Pyke, AKA Freeform, has shown himself to be one of those producers of electronic music who fails singularly to conform to rigid genres and substylings thereof. He simply seems content to produce music within the formats open to someone with a bank of samplers, keyboards, mixers and effects units, regardless of constraints of what anyone else might have done along the way. Now that the 21stso-called Century is nearly upon us (again it seems), it’s satisfying that the is a host of musicians turning out music based in firm electronic technology, but not limited by them.
So much for the generalities; Green Park follows on from the previous outing Me Shape with a that album’s clockwork tumblings stripped down even further into more subtly defined directions, with some helpfully descriptive titles – e.g. “Windup” and the delightful “Precision Clownage”. The sense of urgency sometimes apparent on Me Shape has apparently mellowed on the first side into a slow-trickling concern with deftly-placed keyboads working their way around bare sample percussion which, when it does assume the mechanised groove of the digital funk, remains somehow distracted in its self-absorbed rhythms. Lulling the listener into a somnolent state through hypnotic micro-repetitions as much as the swirl of a synthetic sussurus, many of the tracks on Side A work towards a state of foggy equilibrium.
When the tempo picks up, as on the virtual chimed klang of “Twentytwo” or the creakily livewire jerk Drum & Bass of “Spinder” and “Wait4Me”, it’s quite like being shaken gently into half-waking states of dream dubscapes. Analogue synthesizer sounds squirm to themselves while the Meccano gamelan construcions make for a more disturbing underlay, and beat congeries seeking urgent attention gnaw at the skull. The munificentlty self-propelled arpeggio langour of “Craving For Grey” which provides a laid-back interlude has a simply-squarked and attenuated vocal (or imitation of a voice) to distract before the squelchy rhythm investigations of “Tin”, complete with restrained slap bass among the more seriously booming basskick moments.
Green Park is really quite subtle in its crafting, and modest in its confidence. As the closing tracks “I Hope You Like It” take off into reverbed recapitulation, it’s with the satisfying air of a job well done, and a slightly mystifying one at that, evinced on the CD by the inclusion of the time-lagging “An Aerial View” to really mess the head up with some murkily mashed digital afterthoughts. Seriously enjoyable.
-Freq1C-
