Brad Rose is shaping up to challenge Steve Moore for the crown of renaissance man of analog electronic music - what with the Digitalis label, The North Sea and, of course, the utterly fucking amazing Charlatan. This is a collaboration with Pete Fosco playing barely-recognisable-guitar and appears to be edits and re-assemblies of much longer pieces to produce a seven track album of dark angular beauty. Each track is underpinned with a steadily undulating melody line over which is heard the rising and falling of effects-covered chords and notes and a sprinkling of other sounds over the top.
The elaborate reconstructions of these pieces succeed in producing perfectly realised snatches of atmosphere slowly unfolding before enveloping your senses. They are at their most gorgeous when the guitar is less evident (especially on 'Gazelocked') as the guitar sound is often metallic and sharp whereas the synths are much warmer in the main.
I find that this is a very visual album and can't help myself hearing it as a soundtrack to a movie about a doomed space mission, there are moments of genuinely unsettling music ('Skeleton Summer' sounds like something Throbbing Gristle based their whole career on trying to create) and these are the most cinematic and also work as a counter balance to the more melodic pieces. I know that it's a cliché to compare electronic music to sci-fi soundtracks but, fuck it - i never promised to be original.
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