Claire :: Perfume (Acoustic Division)

Complex when it needs to be, harsh and floor centered when the desire arises and absorbing from needle drop to run out.

A lack of women is one of the axioms of electronic music. A friend of mine summarized this quite succinctly on the taxi ride back from Bloc Weekend once. A soft spoken Norfolk cabbie made an observation: “Not many women at this thing is there?” The response he received was the methanol tongued: “Fucking cockfest man.” This less than savory statement is one of the problems with electronics, men on the floor, men behind the decks, men working the machines. But in recent years there has been a growth in the number of women taking up headphones and synths. Veronica Vasicka, Xosar and Aurora Halal are just some of the names helping to correct this historical gender imbalance. Another name to add to this list is Claire Elise Tippins. Some of you will her from a partnership with Stefan Blomier for Elephant Recordings and her excellent releases with Matt Weiner as Featureless Ghost. Now the US artist is debuting her solo project, Claire, on Acoustic Division with the five tracker of Perfume.

From the get go the 12” is superbly varied. “Breathless” is a hardy piece of Techno but in quite a different vein from the usual. The sound is stark, distant and playful. Echoes bend into one another, a pulsing rhythm keeping time on the ghosts behind the backcloth. But there is beatless deepness, respites that serve to elevate the EP. “Opening Encounter” and “Indefinite Remain” shimmer, chords cascade as bars rise and fall in a soundscape sea. A blackened anger is present, seething below and resurfacing for the slasher aggression of “Milk.” The closer blends the two disparate styles which orbit the EP. The marriage is the smooth and tactile richness of “Red Between Green”, nine minute spacewalk of textured notes and soothing patterns.

Perfume is the first from Claire Tippins’ solo project. I’ve been impressed with the US artist’s past collaborations, but going it alone was always going to be a test; a challenge which Tippins has more rose to. The EP is complex when it needs to be, harsh and floor centered when the desire arises and absorbing from needle drop to run out.

Perfume is available on Acoustic Division.