A compelling mixture of shimmering guitar, huge soundscapes, beautifully delicate melodies and pensive ambience.
London based Rednetic have been steadily following a determined line in electronica, ambient, dub techno and general left field sounds for as long as this befuddled brain can remember. They’ve been responsible for introducing me to a number of artists including Ochre, Mint, Infinite Scale, Sunosis and Cyan341.
This release sees label head Mark Streatfield team up with Wil Bolton to, in part, explore a love of 80s and 90s guitar based bands such as Slowdive, The Cure and Jesus and Mary Chain. Whilst a pleasant pall of guitars hangs across a fair amount of this album, it’s fair to say only one track really explores proper reverb buried vocal territory. “Fall Down” features vocals from Kate Tustain and is ‘as nearest to pop as Rednetic has ever got’ and fair play to them too as it’s a mighty fine track.
Resisting the temptation to explore this area more deeply, Wil and Mark instead pull the rest of the album into a compelling mixture of shimmering guitar, huge soundscapes, beautifully delicate melodies and pensive ambience.
The title track sits bang in late night head territory with a female vocal sample that seems to awake some long forgotten D&B musical memory alongside reverbed 808 snares and a downright lovely guitar / synth melody line combo. “Tall Grass” inhabits deeper, more unnerving yet no less beautiful spaces as droning notes hang across reversed samples and toy box melodies. “Sorry for All the Mistakes” is an album highlight and has been on repeat around these parts—it’s gently undulating guitars and subtle synth accompaniment feel like they’ve existed somewhere before yet I can’t quite place where. There’s a nod to noise in “End of an Error”—whose plumes of distortion and field recordings hide a really rather pleasant core—whilst album closer “Never Go Back” sways in juxtaposition with clean cut sound, perky melodies and dusty road electric guitar chime.
This is a finely balanced and very well pieced together album—fantastic for working to especially. It doesn’t objectionably take over head space but rather lets you find your own head space as you listen. No mean feat and highly recommended for it.
A Day Without Distance is available on Rednetic.
