This LP adheres to the traditions of electronics utilizing the frameworks of electro, house and techno while filling those well known spaces with forms that are both familiar and starkly different. This is a album that is absolutely absorbing and extremely exciting in its daring attempt to reshape the immediately recognizable. Whether or not this LP is a response to the United States bizarre socio-economic policies is debatable, but it does offer an idea of re-imagining set notions and revising preconceptions. What is not up for discussion is the quality of this record and how truly innovative it is.
The past twelve months has seen the US cement itself as the media meal of choice. A day has barely passed without Mr. Trump beaming from broadsheet headlines or the millionaire president pouring vitriol through the radio-waves and twitterspehere. Now the 45th president is turning his hand at trade wars. I can’t help but wonder what his voters make of this, opinion polls say they love it. In this climate of contradiction, of ever-changing goalposts, of allies being turned into enemies and grotesque pantomime villains painted as sainted saviors, where do you turn for sanity? Great Circles might have an answer.
A spread of extraordinary things have happened since I last wrote of the Pennsylvania imprint. American politics, and this is an outsider perspective, appears to have not only divided itself further but the population is cleaved between those “who are with me” and those “who lie about me.” To make sense of this Instagram cult of the personality, to untangle the knots within knots, music can be an unlikely tonic.
M//R is a Philadelphia-based musician who has been upsetting melodies and upturning harmonies for labels like L.I.E.S. and Details Sound. His sound can be categorized as a caustic blend between inverted industrial techno and graveled computer glitch. These somewhat jagged characteristics have been filleted for this first full length album, Among the Methods. The LP opens with the warming bath that is “Twilight Birth,” an aquatic wash of softened synths which carries into the superb “Piece 1.” Elements of IDM and electronica have been adopted and adapted to make this album, M//R refreshing textures and tones that seem to have all been abandoned the harsher landscapes of machine music. With this, rhythms are considered from a different angle. A rumbling tribal energy has been implanted, a complex programming of beats which has allowed for chords to bend and flex within their patterns in a manner reminiscent of breakbeat works. And within that same breath, wonderfully simple structures are employed. “Kokoon” is a parred back work of primal techno. Acid squelch and infectious toms drive the piece as subtle touches and lush pads elevate it into something mesmerizing. More of an experimental edge enters with the shamanic chants and skittering percussion of “Rooms” before the dubbed out electro of “Swans.” A spectrum of styles come together for this collection, styles that at once seem disparate but through such attention to detail interlock and interplay seamlessly. The title piece is perhaps the most playful of the seven tracks. Warbling xylophonic lines bend and curve with a will of their own, bobbing and diving amidst percussive currents for a finale that nods to big room anthems whilst cutting its own path.
Is M//R´s new record an audio atlas for the ever more distant and foreign definition of the American Dream? Can it shine a light through the smog and sleight of hand in new world politics? No is the simple response, no music can. Nevertheless, Among the Methods does something else. This LP adheres to the traditions of electronics utilizing the frameworks of electro, house and techno while filling those well known spaces with forms that are both familiar and starkly different. This is a album that is absolutely absorbing and extremely exciting in its daring attempt to reshape the immediately recognizable. Whether or not this LP is a response to the United States bizarre socio-economic policies is debatable, but it does offer an idea of re-imagining set notions and revising preconceptions. What is not up for discussion is the quality of this record and how truly innovative it is.
Among The Methods Great Circlesis available on .
