rest symbol

Genre: ELECTRONIC

LP (Black Vinyl)

Boomkat Product Review:

Finally coming to vinyl as the inaugural release on Peak Oil sublabel FO, the super strong debut album of dark ambient-pop and trip hop creep by London’s Rest Symbol has been on heavy rotation here for the last 18 months since it first appeared on the AN1MA label, intermingling hypnagogic electro-acoustic processes into decades of British downtempo R&D, a huge tip for fans of Niecy Blues, Nicolette, Portishead, Space Afrika, Leslie Winer, bassæ, Tricky, John T. Gast.

Rest Symbol appears to be the joint work of Molinaro, Moreiya, and Wendy Lavone, who’ve all contributed superb solo efforts to the AN1MA label before gelling into this unheimlich triumvirate. Their maiden trip seriously gets under the skin with a blend of bewitching vocals and intoxicating slow burn atmospheres, the sort of sound that lingers on air like hash smoke. It's a trip-hop record in the classic sense, mining its base elements from vintage Mo'Wax whitelabels, Broadcast's day-zero 7"s and the dustiest West Country deviations, but the trio emboss well-worn downtempo concepts with disorientating contemporary fingerprints, proposing a sound that feels lived-in but new.

Head straight to 'Skin' and the band's MO will be startlingly clear. Grotty, poignant strings - caked in crackle - swirl ominously around vocalist Moreiya's husky, soulful Beth Gibbons-cum-Martina Topley-Bird whispers, and Molinaro and Wendy Lavone's touched, inverted production throbs like a distant heartbeat, steadily building momentum. When the rhythm erupts in gusty double-time - think Third Eye Foundation's perennially genius 'Semtex' - Moreiya meets the liveliness with heart-piercing wordless operatics, plunging her voice into ghostly echoes and ruptured sonic blisters. On 'Ascending Shadow', the light, lounge-y organs form a psychedelic netting that'll be familiar to anyone who's spent time with Broadcast's 'Work and Non Work', while Rest Symbol dilate the ambience a little further, magicking the edges with Radiophonic alchemy and letting Moreiya's pristine cabaret purrs take pride of place.

It's the raw texture of this one that has us ruined; the trio don’t so much recreate trip-hop as much as disperse its various shapes and sounds until we're spirit walking thru their vision of an era that's underpinned decades of British cultural gesticulation. There's the greased reflection of diva rave in 'ETIUS MOTIF', a ritualistic nod to chic Bristolian d&b on the dulcet '6', and a glimpse of Barry Adamson's dimly-lit boulevard during the final minutes of the album's glacial closer 'Twelfth Hour'. Everything's re-imagined in full grain, with an ear to the overall finish - it's hard to label it ambient, but there's that same attention to detail trained on the whole, rather than any specific component.

Not to be missed!!

LP (Black Vinyl) (8)