Endless Corners is a fun EP that takes you on an emotional ride and easily ranks as one of the strongest braindance releases of the summer. For those who grew up on Rephlex, who know the feeling of a perfect hi-hat pattern landing exactly where it should, who understand what it means when an acid line locks into a string arrangement and suddenly everything makes sense, this record is going to hit somewhere deep.
An ideal braindance record
Sharon Subbarao—the London-based classically trained violinist, pianist, and composer behind Ariadne’s Labyrinth, has one of the more unusual origin stories in experimental electronic music. After years immersed in the London squat scene and illegal rave sound systems, she moved through jazz, improvised music, and the rhythms of Cuba and Brazil before eventually turning to electronica, searching for textures and rhythmic structures impossible to replicate through traditional instrumental performance alone. Her debut Lost and Founded landed on Detroit Underground in 2017, followed by Twists and Turns on Touched Music that same year, an album Touched Music‘s Martin Boulton described as “simply stunning.” Her Ridiom EP in 2021, supported by Arts Council England, drew comparisons to Warp and Rephlex at their most melodically ambitious. Endless Corners arrives on Adepta Editions as the fifth installment in the AEX Series—a peripheral ecosystem where Pearl River Sound, Global Goon, Serge Geyzel, and Jon Murphy have already made their mark. It’s a fitting home for her most visceral and emotionally direct work yet.
This is a beautiful short EP—limited to 200 copies on vinyl, and it comes close to an ideal braindance record. “Amble Eddy Song” is a memorable opener with steel drums as the backbone of the track, unfolding into beautiful strings as the acid lushes everything up. It’s very emotional and it hits at home for braindance lovers. Those who love old school Rephlex braindance (Cylob, AFX, Luke Vibert, etc…) will recognize the DNA immediately. The melodic sensibility here is unmistakably rooted in that era, but Subbarao brings something those producers couldn’t, live classical training embedded directly into the composition. The strings aren’t sampled or programmed to sound organic. They are organic, and the difference is audible.
“Missing Daydream” impresses with so much melody and wonderful melodic structure that it’s hard to fully grasp in one sitting. The drums land perfectly with the tempo and vibe, precise but never clinical, which is a balance that takes real skill to maintain when you’re working with live instrumentation alongside electronic programming. “Terminal Dot” is another beauty, darker and sadder than the others, with punchy drums that carry a strong reminiscence of AFX‘s Analogue Bubblebath Vol. 3, specifically in the drum hits and hi-hats. That record, released in 1993 on Rephlex, established a template for how braindance percussion could feel simultaneously mechanical and deeply human, tight, tactile, and emotionally loaded. Subbarao understands that template from the inside. The dry orchestral strings here, applied without effects, are a deliberate choice. No reverb, no processing, just the instrument sitting in the room. In a genre that typically buries everything in atmosphere, that kind of restraint is striking and it works completely.
So much emotion in such a short runtime ::
“Threads” closes the EP as its most playful and emotionally open moment. The melodies and drums are fun and engaging, and it’s the only track featuring vocals—woven through the chords and pads in a way that adds warmth without overpowering the production underneath. It’s the kind of track that stays with you. One of those tunes that carries so much emotion in such a short runtime that it leaves you genuinely wanting more.
Endless Corners is a fun EP that takes you on an emotional ride and easily ranks as one of the strongest braindance releases of the summer. For those who grew up on Rephlex, who know the feeling of a perfect hi-hat pattern landing exactly where it should, who understand what it means when an acid line locks into a string arrangement and suddenly everything makes sense, this record is going to hit somewhere deep. Subbarao hasn’t just studied that sound. She’s lived inside classical music long enough to understand what braindance was always reaching for, and she’s brought it home. Limited to 200 copies. Don’t sleep on it.
Endless Corners is available on Adepta Editions. [Bandcamp]
