Best New Tracks - Pitchfork |  |
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Posted: 08 Nov 2013 09:45 AM PST
The music Liz Harris creates as Grouper is often positively described as something to which the listener submits; through their song titles and deep blue, shimmering ambience, Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill and The Man Who Died in His Boat encouraged a lot of well-deserved comparisons to the experience of voluntary drowning. Raum, her collaboration with Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, doesn't stray too far from her own experimentations with vocal loops and heavily effected guitar from a compositional standpoint—it's all decay and release, with only the impression of attack and sustain.
On "Blood Moon", from the duo's debut (out November 15 via Glass, house), the same surrender is achieved, but Raum are making the first move. Over five minutes, Harris and Ledesma layer distortion and unearthly vocals that create their typical immersive effect without drawing attention to how loud it is. And it's all the more absorbing for its eerie control of a redlining sonic assault. Even if the churning feedback could've popped up on the latest My Bloody Valentine record, it's nothing you'd wake the neighbors with, but rather something meant to subdue an audience of one. In other words, deafening silence. Raum: "Blood Moon" on SoundCloud.  |
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Posted: 24 Sep 2013 08:01 AM PDT
Rhode Island producer the Range is releasing his debut LP, Nonfiction, for Brighton's bright, buzzy Donky Pitch label on October 14. "Metal Swing" is the final track from that album, a singular slice of sampladelia that's as hard to place as it is hypnotic. Built around a simple rhythmic template and patient, looping piano chords, "Metal Swing" spends its opening minutes buzzing modestly. It calls to mind the easy, floral melodies of Pause-era Four Tet or the liminal electronic spaces of early Caribou. The piano releases to clear space for the track's star: a sample of what sounds like an amateur British rapper reeling off a string of reasonable, mostly polite boasts.
The rapper's naked voice and marble-mouthed delivery undermine any shade of violence in the lyrics, as the sample just sits and repeats in the pretty, disarming space The Range creates for it. The cadence of the voice seems to double in on itself after several repetitions, and by the time The Range reintroduces the piano melody, the track has eased into a steady trot. The end of the sample atrophies into four quiet, wordless grunts, a soft landing for a voice that seemingly came from nowhere, and has some intention of returning. The Range: "Metal Swing" on SoundCloud.  |
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