(11.09.06) The Emerald EP is a 12″ ode to Jeff McIlwain’s adopted Seattle, four tracks that encompass the weather and the architecture of the city. While the songs don’t contain any (recognizable) field recordings from Seattle, the persuasive rhythms and textures are a litany to the nascent vibrancy of the region.
On the A-side, the gaseous bubbling rhythms of “Near Sight” settle into a dancing pot of cavorting molecules where intermittent stabs of synth noise vent like spurts of hot air. A polyrhythmic etude for the molecularly dissipated, the first track percolates until every last molecule has vented, and all that remains is an ambient echo. “Weaver” holds on to the ambient tone from “Near Sight” while crystalline
slices of programming are paraded past in a stroboscopic array, stuttering in their fricative incompleteness. A human voice
interweaves itself in the mix, equally cut-up, and the whole thing becomes half-tick hip-hop, separated from the fullness of the beat by digital dropouts and phased transmissions.
The B-side isn’t quite as future-infected. “Emerald” sways with a retro-electro vibe: an ’80s synth melody makes time with a vocoded vocal on a bed of perky drum programming. “Emerald” is a stutter-step of millennial beat chicanery that swings the past around as if to slingshot it beyond the sun and into the future; while “Rubberbands” knocks plasticene kicks and beats off old modular synth loops, fragmenting their cool organic sound into a cascade of molded percussion. Layers of broken blips and beeps add to up to an algebraically precise structure reminiscent of Autechre-style generative math. But Lusine keeps an active hand in the mix, switching rubbery sounds in and dropping plastic rhythm chits out.
The Emerald EP is a slab of vinyl that is in definite keeping with the future dance mix aesthetic of Ghostly International, while still clinging to the complex mathematics of modern electronic composition. Lusine is like the darting rhythms of his tracks:
always on the move, always changing. But, for an instant, he’s been caught and pressed. Play this one until the grooves wear out.
Emerald EP is out now on Ghostly International.
