After a number of releases under variations of the Lusine name (L’usine on Isophlux and Lusine ICL on Hymen), Jeff McIlwain comes to Ghostly International with Serial Hodgepodge, a record that is his
most accessible to date. Filled with rhythms that crunch with crisp delicacy and that twitch and sway with the allure of a highly paid runway model, Serial Hodgepodge cleverly avoids the trap of its name.
“Ask You” sets a mid-tempo beat against a soaring female voice that is pursued by a flock of chittering glitch elements, a contrail of static and granular electronic noise dappling the wake of the curving vocal
line. A snorting riposte of a beat fuels “Slur,” where tiny smears of the vocal from “Ask You” persist as echoes against the dramatic background. McIlwain’s programming is rife with intricate details and complex passages as he crafts textured tracks that have resonant depth and emotional complexity. While a more uptempo beat may propel the track, it is his exacting attention to the fine embellishments which tug at your heart. “Drip,” a brief ambient excursion after the more brightly paced opening tracks, is a multi-layered tone poem of cascading notes and fogged static, a single phrase of decaying notes that passes as one extended exhalation. “Falling In” is built upon layers of compressed strata: a thin layer of fine bleeps, a slice of
ambient song, a rocky layer of compacted bass drum rhythms, a microscopic film of crackling static and top-most stratum that
enthusiastically throws down a layer of house music.
I’m particularly charmed by the nocturnal shuffle of “Auto Pilot” and how McIlwain composes a dense rhythmic track from a multitude of tiny elements as if, once he has stacked enough layers, a fully realized song suddenly comes into being. With this track and the others on Serial Hodgepodge, McIlwain offers a glimpse into the myriad of concurrent processes that go on inside the head of the digital musician as they build luminous and emotionally arresting soundtracks from stacked series of electronic signals. Recommended.
Serial Hodgepodge is out now on Ghostly International.
