Category Archives: Switched On

Switched On – K.D.A.P.: Influences (Arts & Crafts Productions)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Taking time out from his full-time role as frontman for Toronto band Broken Social Scene, Kevin Drew makes his first album as K.D.A.P. (Kevin Drew A Picture). It is a chance for him to revisit his early 20s, when he listened intently to the early output of the Warp label as well as a good deal of electronic and cinematic music.

While it is a bit of a throwback, Influences is ultimately a creative response to the Coronavirus pandemic, when Drew found himself in the south of England in lockdown. Embracing the chance to get out into the natural world, his walked through the woods of Slinford and along the canals in North London. The excursions yielded plenty of musical ideas, which he expressed in fully formed ideas on the Endlesss app.

These ideas were sculpted into eight instrumental works with engineer Nyles Spencer, and some of the music was re-recorded with the help of drummer Evan Tighe and Broken Social Scene bass player Charles Spearin.

What’s the music like?

Influences positively bubbles with life and promise, like the English countryside in the springtime. An abundance of melodic ideas course through each track, carefully layered into an appealing patchwork of patterns.

The Slinfold Loop, Drew’s first track. blossoms nicely and shows how the album will work, without becoming an obvious blueprint. There is busy activity in the background and attractive melodic loops up front, all with the potential to germinate.

Shadow Rescues pulses with a positive nervous energy, while single lines are intertwined like shoots, leaves and branches on You And Me And Them, each with their own distinct colours. Wilner’s Parade is underpinned by a lean piano line, while Hopefully Something has a guitar prompt that could easily be taken from an outtake by The Cure.

Does it all work?

It does. Drew’s work is full of incident, and is ambient in the sense that it radiates positive energy and melodic charm. If anything some of these compositions could be allowed to run for longer, as there are so many ideas they would stand up to more development.

Is it recommended?

Enthusiastically. Influences is a highly listenable piece of work that reveals more with each listen. Influences is ideally structured and lovingly constructed. It is in a sense a love letter from Kevin Drew to his youth, but it could lead to so much more in the future, for he is clearly at home in an environment like this, and relishes the opportunities it has to offer.

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Switched On – Fake Laugh & Tarquin: Fake Laugh & Tarquin (Republic Of Music)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

“I feel a frost in the summertime”, sings Fake Laugh at the start of Ice, the second song into his collaboration with old college friend, producer Tarquin. How did he know that the album would be released in one of Britain’s worst summers in ages? The song, a single release from the pair’s debut album in partnership, is an accurate guide to what lies in store for listeners.

Their friendship was light to start with, a fleeting acquaintance while studying in Sussex, but here they hook up with far greater intent, releasing a few singles and picking up endorsements from the likes of DJ Annie Mac in the process.

What’s the music like?

Engaging and a bit quirky – but essentially some very listenable electro pop. There is a sound musical chemistry between the two, together with songwriting that comes alive in the lyrical department. Original Sin is a fine example of this, its opening lyrics set to chugging clarinets. 

In contrast, We Ride holds its poise over a crunchy backing, while Gloom On The Dancefloor is an affecting, stately torch song. The vocals from Fake Laugh are a standout feature too, floating elegantly on Slow while beautifully layered on So Good.

Does it all work?

Yes, providing the listener doesn’t take their electro pop too seriously. There is no padding to the songs, the album over relatively quickly – but there is more than enough substance for it to survive a second and a third play without running out of steam.

Is it recommended?

Yes. This album offers an original approach, with songs that are a bit different to the over polished fodder heard on mainstream radio at the moment. Fake Laugh & Tarquin are on to something here, and it is to be hoped their collaboration doesn’t stop at one album.

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Switched On – Llyr: Biome (Mesh)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

‘Nature is the ultimate composer’. This is the standout quote from Berlin-based Gareth Williams, aka Llyr, as he introduces his first full-length album Biome. Natural sounds are the first things we hear, the birds and monkeys of the Borneo rainforest making themselves known and setting the scene for Williams’ thoughtful piece of work.

For Biome is an environmental album as well as a musical one, split into two distinct sections called Pre-Anthropocene and Anthropocene. The first four tracks constitute an ambient celebration of nature and its many qualities, while the second group of four are disrupted by human involvement.

What’s the music like?

Llyr allows the field recordings to flow beautifully from the start, with minimal involvement from his own electronics, but he prompts the slight changes of mood with a natural instinct for structure. The sounds are lovely on headphones, the listener allowed to revel in the unhurried natural processes of the jungle. Particularly striking is the fourth track, Courtship Signal, where the mating calls of frogs in Kubah National Park are replicated and developed.

When the humans get involved the electronics come to the fore, and so do the dance beats. Llyr manages the crossover really well, and unleashes a form of primal energy through the kinetic Intrusion #509, the bubbling of The Hawthorne Effect and a rush of percussion on Interject, featuring Private Agenda, that sweeps all before it. Llyr uses this to show the chaos of the human imprint, having a good time but sweeping away the ambience that went before. Finally Encroachment powers to the finish, and we realise all the while that we have been held under the dense canopy of the forest. The white noise of the percussion enhances this effect.

Does it all work?

Yes. Biome is an imaginative look at the so-called developing world today, and its structure works really well. Essentially it is a sequence of natural ambience, followed by 25 minutes of busy dancefloor action, like moving between two stages in a forest festival.

Is it recommended?

It is. Electronics and field recordings can work together really well in the right circumstances, and this is definitely a case in point. Llyr makes a number of powerful observations about the state of the world today without ramming them down the listener’s throat, communicating them in a very musical way. This means Biome works on several levels, a journey in the truest sense of the word.

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Switched On – DJ Food: Kaleidoscope Companion (Ninja Tune)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Strictly Kev and PC, the men behind DJ Food, can reveal just how productively they spent last year’s lockdown. Aware that it marked two decades since the release of Kaleidoscope, when DJ Food was a mysterious incarnation conceived by Ninja Tune founders Coldcut, the two rounded up music from their archives of the recording sessions. To their surprise the volume and quality of the material was such that Kaleidoscope Companion became possible. It is a collection of unreleased tracks, remixes and alternate versions, all closely related to the album but structured in such a way that a whole new opus has been created. Kev explains it best, as ‘not a new DJ Food album’, more ‘an old one that never was’.

What’s the music like?

Given that this electronic music is essentially 20 years old, Kaleidoscope Companion could have been written yesterday. That says much for the staying power of DJ Food, and how inventive the beats and sound pictures were in the year they were released. Here the quality of the compositions is immediately evident.

Take Skylark, exposed as a mini-masterpiece. With the crackling of the outdoors effectively evoked, an elastic bass line is established before a stringed instrument climbs through the textures and floats on the air effortlessly.

The Crow (Slow) is one of the welcome alternate versions, stretching its material into a gorgeous panoramic view that could easily last double the length it is given here. See Saw also offers reassuringly thick textures of an ambient persuasion, as does the closing Boohoo, with a serene string line that segues into softly humourous pitch bends at the end.

There are elements of spatial jazz here. Hip Operation (great title!) is an active story, building with white noise beats and detective-drama trumpets. Stealth, an alternative version of the Gentle Cruelty remix of The Ageing Young Rebel, is a nocturnal scene with a mellow but quite mournful flute tone. Its spoken word vocal, telling of self-obsession, is remarkably prescient for today’s times. The Rook + Type 3 takes a more cinematic turn, with another flexible bass and brief figures from strings and clarinet, while offbeat percussion flickers and flares in the background.

The collection’s centrepiece is Quadraplex (A Trip to the Galactic Centre), which starts without beats but then wanders seemingly into the middle of a clearing and a meditation in full swing, with thrumming percussion and a series of spatial effects. Blended from several different takes, it is a mesmerising piece of work.

Does it all work?

It does. The structure of Kaleidoscope Companion has been carefully thought through, and the positioning of Quadraplex in the middle splits the collection into three parts, with a meditative quarter of an hour at its heart.

The analogue clicks and crackles around the edges of many of the tracks are welcome, and the refusal of the music to comply to stricter digital confines serves it well too.

Is it recommended?

Yes. If you listened to this without knowing the author, you would bookmark it as a talent to keep an eye on, a source of new and exciting electronica. The fact that it is a companion to an already excellent and revered album only heightens the appeal, showing just how durable electronic music has proved to be. Fans of the Ninja Tune label will love it.

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Switched On: John Sellekaers: Observer Effect (Glacial Movements)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

‘Observer Effect is an album fed by history, countless stories and books’, reports John Sellekaers. The Brussels-based musician, who also works in other art forms as an engineer, photographer and designer, is approaching this album through the view of a pioneer explorer. He is imagining the experience of visiting a new region for the first time in history, pondering how his arrival in an undiscovered area changes the previously unseen habitat – and exploring the effect it has on him. Given Glacial Movements‘ musical history the points of reference that come to mind are the North and South poles, and the remote areas on their approach – or even another planet entirely.

What’s the music like?

Observer Effect starts like an extended tidal system. Big, single chords ebb and flow with a reassuring regularity. Occasionally a less certain sound imposes on the cycle but generally the outlook is one of vast ambience. Slowly the landscape passes by, the listener seemingly positioned on a slow moving method of transport with the scope to take in wide vistas. Gradually the scenes change over time, but occasionally a darker side is revealed, as though the introduction of man-made elements is threatening the natural change.

A thicker treble pitch makes itself known at the start of On The Trail, an intense and sustained note, and as this track evolves a more distorted sound, like a long guitar note, creeps into the consciousness. After this burst of intensity, a dense blanket of sound descends for Shelter, which takes on more definitive brush strokes. In The Lightest Night takes on eerie harmonies and a strong current of uncertainty, heightened by the displaced harmonies of Optical Haze Pt. 1, which plays with the listener’s perspective, especially on headphones, before charting a much deeper course towards the end.

Parasomnia creaks as though under stress from something, before the substantial Water Sky takes a repeated phrase of one note and runs with it, the tidal system returning to the listener’s consciousness. Finally Optical Haze Pt. 2 offers a calmer scene and ultimately rest.

Does it all work?

It does – and is most effective when listened to as a whole. Sellekaer’s music is unusual, for it manages to imply melodies while using very few notes, and emotions are portrayed through texture just as much as harmony. It is coldly effective, difficult to always relate to on a human level but compelling all the same.

Is it recommended?

Yes. Observer Effect proves a worthy addition to the Glacial Movements canon of immersive ambience, telling a powerful story in its relatively few notes. Fans of the label need not hesitate.

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