The brittleness and careful attention to every microscopic note, melody, click, and lullaby rhythm tends to ebb and flow, allowing Build to quite literally build upon a variety of abstract bits and pieces that are somehow glued together.
A blissfully coherent melodic stream of creative musical extracts
The opening press release notes basically spill the plot for Build’s new album on Audiobulb—”An exceptionally well planned micro-glitch urban landscape created for the convenience of suburban commuters.” The brittleness and careful attention to every microscopic note, melody, click, and lullaby rhythm tends to ebb and flow, allowing Build to quite literally build upon a variety of abstract bits and pieces that are somehow glued together.
Tracks like “Hit Ring” evolve and eventually dissolve as hypnotic clicks’n cuts meander through detuned melodic elements—we are quickly transported to early IDM days (late 90s / early 00s) where delicate technoid and clip-hop slivers make their way through (reference “A Protective Plastic Coating” as an example.) For those that recall artists like Penfold Plum, Plod and Plone (the three P’s of classic glitch-infused electronica), Build seems to launch from this particular place in time. “Harbor Surface” is reminiscent of those earlier audio time capsules. And yet, just when you settle in with Build’s nostalgia influx, tracks like “H Edit Af 1” fine-tunes our thinking—here you’ll find more upfront techno motifs and a low-flying ambient undercurrent drawing us in.
As the album expands and contracts, the general consensus is that each piece bursts at the seam with exquisite blips and subtle bleeps. Familiar lullaby grooves continue to pluck at the heartstrings and “You Can Get Here From There If You Don’t Mind The T Left Over” does just that. Not forgetting that the opening and closing title pieces, while parallels of each other, glide by with an air of confidence—the gentle tones and glitchy tentacles act as an introduction and appendix to all that is unveiled in between. A blissfully coherent melodic stream of creative musical extracts.
A Development with a Grid of Streets and a Shopping Center Heart is available on Audiobulb August 17, 2021. [Bandcamp]
