Huerco S. - Apheleia's Theme

This is house with classic written all over it. Huerco S. has emerged from the murky experimental end of US house in the last couple of years, releasing a couple of obscure cuts on Opal Tapes and the Ukrainian label Wicked Bass. Tracks like Battery Tunnel demonstrated a downtempo, downer type melancholy take on house music in the vein of Noi No by Madteo, but somehow there wasn't enough to be truely excited about.

The first (title) track off this new release for Washington label Future Times is a 9 minute killer, starting out hard and purposeful the track builds slowly adding just enough to the mix as it progresses to keep it immediate, there is a shade of UK Bass at times and the whole track feels like it draws on his past variety, giving it an air of mood music - it sounds dark and hypnotic or dancefloor heavy depending on when you hear it. Already a part of many big mixes this is a definite lasting tune.

Ausschachtung is a brooding affair which reminds me just slightly of A1 on Workshop 16 (Marcellis) though built from sound-fx and vocal samples, a weirdo sound collage which wouldn't sound out of place on a David Lynch film.

Cercy on the other hand merges the two sounds, closest to Madteo's gloom-tunes than either of the first two, it is sample-scapes with a hi-hat backing which makes for a decent head-nod.

It's definitely the title track that makes this release, but a solid 12 nonetheless, the B-side is perhaps the most concise representation of Huerco's past, but the A is two steps forwards for a fast emerging producer.

Kristina Records (Dalston)
Phonica Records (Soho)

The Siege of Troy

It's hard to mentally put together all the elements of The Siege of Troy, released as a self titled album and EP by Gunnar Wendel under this new name. It's also hard to really call it house music, though doubtless it pulls many elements of that genre into its loose yet freely evolving sound; the term thrown out as a descriptor on its release last month was Jacknoise, a tag which may adds something but certainly doesn't seem to sum up the release. 

Throughout there is a very disorientating quality to the music, seemingly somewhere in orbit about a house music core it pulls kicks and bouncing beats off at will, precariously close to spiraling off into broken beats or even freeform noise, yet somehow balancing sounds in a chaotic motion which evolves faster than anything Wendel has previously turned his hand to. Similarly when trying to describe the music, it begins to touch upon a genre briefly before taking off in a completely different direction, at times a middle eastern edge makes it feel close to Muslimgauze or the militant abrasion of Vatican Shadow, then suddenly a morph and you're left closer to Madteo or some mutant house hybrid. There is very little here to lend a tag to and very little stable ground at all, compared with the Kassem Mosse styling this feels like a mood board, with each track potentially a separate LP's worth of material, but for that there is a lot of intrigue and this is certainly a tape to be left on loop for a full 3 or 4 rotations before you feel able to settle on it. 

A full on experiment in the blending of sounds to form something cohesive, this kind of depth, variety and freeform composition is so rarely attempted by producers with a club music background, whether the project will go anywhere is pretty questionable, but this is a gem of a release which will definitely bring you back on occasion for a full on mindfuck.

Officially dropping on 13th May on cassette (& a shortened form on 7") through Wendel's Ominira imprint, this was instantly gone, but Phonica Records have a few copies in stock as of today, be quick.

Raime & Romeu Runa at St. Luke's

Tangible anticipation around the rarest of live performances for a duo who released one of the most intriguing albums of last year, albeit at the dark tail-end of the year, Raime created something unique with Quarter Turns Over a Living Line which was both an evolution and devolution of their previous sound. They dropped the grand cityscapes, dark as they were, for a bleaker scale, partially draped in the fuzz of power electronics and built from desolate looping which was in places closer to Basinski than Regis.

The performance is set in the London Symphony Orchestra venue of St. Luke's, on Old Street - unfortunately a venue whose grand old stonework has been obscured by sound enhancing surfaces and swaths of electronics and lighting rigs. You couldn't help but feel like the show would have benefited from a lower-key type setup in an old building with a little more preserved character.

As the lights dim and Tom Halstead & Joe Andrews walk out behind the small setup centre-stage, a quick applause and silence, the words RAIME disappear and the show begins. Slow and jittering static-like electronics are overtaken by the plodding beat of Soil & Colts, the first visual elements of dappled lighting and distorted green-screen type shapes are replaced with the darkly-lit image of Romeu Runa wrapped in leather, the slow-motion movement of his contorted expression and reaching, grasping hand movements veiling him in a cloud of dust. The track creates a hypnotic state of commanding repetition before embarking on a climatic build into more noisy territory where the show really becomes more than the home listening experience of the album. Though the initial temptation is to want to experience the show with closed eyes, the extreme slow-motion of the defined movements of Runa really helps to keep the drowsy repetitive element of Raime's music at the fore, even as the sound becomes intense and moves away from the confines of the album.

As the show progresses the set takes a varied form, using elements of the album and combining them with what feels more like freeform noise creation and sections of new material, the consistently super-slow-motion images of Runa add intensity as well as consistency to the sound, which builds and drops to silence, always keeping the well defined elements of Raime's sound distinct, never letting the noise blur into a full on power electronics sound. Despite the bleakness and at times sheer volume, the show has a surprisingly warm and lulling feeling to watch, a valium-like calmness which washes over you, whilst the visuals are at times a fascinating experience of human motion and at others take a bewilderingly abstract form that your mind cannot entirely place or understand.

The show seems to be over quickly and feels like it could easily have been extended over another half an hour, but despite that there is a definite sense of intricate consideration of the whole. Whether the visual element was important is a very personal thing, though it is clear that to Raime themselves it was a well considered and exact presentation; it's what they wanted to show and how they wanted it to be shown.