From a forgotten space, or a rejected one, comes caustic chords and rusted rhythms. Great Circles are part of that change to harsher dialogue. Panel beaten pound, steel stained snares, tetanus transferring thump and aging assembly line atmospherics. Great Circles has a message, one given in severe and uncompromising tones.
They say as the years pass tastes change. The coffee turns blacker, the wine darker. I’m finding the same could be said for my music taste. I’m definitely developing a taste for harder sounds, audio crudités. Industrial has infiltrated Techno and House, bitter and gutteral patterns being pulled out of each. Raw tribalism, the almost shamanic chant of rolling bass and beat. Maybe it’s an answer to the modern condition, or perhaps I’ve just got something for the lack of decoration. Who knows if I don’t, right? In Europe the likes Love Blast are following this dark path. An American imprint walking down this shadowy avenue is Great Circles. The Philadelphia label has been on the go for a few years now but has only started a decent flow of material in the last couple of year. It’s style and mission statement summed up in its last two EPs.
Dan Trevit occupies the A-Side of the split 2.2mi. Cruel, punishing machine music is the product. A steady hammering drives “Mendacious Truth.” Mechanical clack, resonating feedback and a stark brutality see the track toe the line between Industrial and Dark Ambient. “The Vapid” melts away any 4/4 stability. A blackened soundscape is unfurled. Ash and bareness, static and reverb occupying a stripped karst wasteland. Westov Temple, imprint boss Justin Gibbon who was given an excellent interview over at Juno Plus, inhabits the flip. A raging battering ram of percussion introduces “Dr Sadon.” Oil and steam pour from dust speckled beats, a greasy sonic ooze drips from fittings. Rhythms are the core as a hypnotic spiral of snare, clap, tom and bass draw the listener into a world of abrasion and distortion.
The focus is on homegrown talent and for their latest M/R is debuting. Darkness and despair permeate the EP. “Adjacent Possible” pelts the listener in a scornful shower of sounds, drums deluging. “Texas Acid” is a more playful affair, but that sense of loneliness is bolted through the track. Squelch and squeal are mangled into themselves, pads stumbling across a vast emptiness. There isn’t an over complexity to M/R’s sound, instead a handful of coarse, sometimes disparate, elements are brought together in an oblong marriage. “Honey Single” is a terrifically subtle affair. Aspects of Dub Techno are filtered, but there’s something more just bubbling beneath the surface. “Honey Single” begins an easing of ferocity, one that runs into the slow and teasing “Panthers 1.”
There’s been a shift within American electronics. US labels have been at the forefront of the House revival, or its refurbishment, with many hoovering up a serious amount of adulation for it. Likewise there has been a massive archaeological project searching for the undiscovered or unknown through re-issues and re-presses. In many ways it feels like an attempt to escape and remould the almost all consuming brilliance of the popular past, Detroit and Chicago. But this search for authenticity and grit has had results. From a forgotten space, or a rejected one, comes caustic chords and rusted rhythms. Great Circles are part of that change to harsher dialogue. Panel beaten pound, steel stained snares, tetanus transferring thump and aging assembly line atmospherics. Great Circles has a message, one given in severe and uncompromising tones.
For more about Great Circles visit their Soundcloud, Facebook or Bandcamp pages.
