Mining the same rich timbral and conceptual pool as goat(JP), Mark Fell / SND, Gábor Lázár, Beatrice Dillon etc, Church Andrews and Matt Davies find complexity in minimalism on a really strong new album tipped if yr into any of the above - you know the vibe.
Built around rhythmic ratios from the Fibonacci sequence, Church Andrews and Matt Davies' latest album is a tightly wound hybrid of labyrinthine, dextrous live drums and the kind of cybernetic FM tweakery that you'd expect to find on a Rian Treanor LP. 'I’ve always been inspired by music that is complex without sounding complex' says percussionist Davies in the 'Yucca' press release. Hearing the album, it's obvious what he's talking about: there's a level of swing to the tracks that immediately pulls you in, but it's deviously intricate.
The duo are inspired by Terry Riley's levitational minimalism and the intricate drumming of John Coltrane collaborator Roy Haynes, but their music is just as connected to hip-hop, specifically the kind of swayed, groove-fwd expression of innovative producers like Dilla and Madlib. Working with just a single synth and live drums, Davies and Yorkshire-born producer/composer Church Andrews' limitations are their strength, refined to break conventions rather than follow the obvious DAW-layered path. Sitting face-to-face, they make music that's mathematical - 'Yucca's beats are formed around the Fibonacci sequence's spiral patterns - but eerily organic, dipping and curving taut zigazagged drums around brushed aluminum synth palpitations.
'Winston' recalls Gábor Lázár's collapsed grime cogitations, spacing crystalline thonks between tempo-fluxed rhythmic bursts. Their rhythmic template sounds as if it's slithered out of FlyLo's locked hard drive, but the synthwork is pure Eski via Rian Treanor: twitchy and serpentine, enhanced by advanced technical knowhow. On 'Chirp' they speed up Radian's early Mego blueprint, disrupting skillful stickwork with urgent neo soul rimshots and gliding oscillations that trap themselves in brooding pauses, and on 'Ferns', they capture the ooze of the outside world, working off-grid and dancing around the golden ratio as if they're fractals. Astonishingly, the music never gets ensnared in its own concept; Davies and Andrews are light-headed on the title track, maintaining the momentum while they take liberties with the microscopic details. Davies' interest in free-jazz drumming radiates the whole way through, all woody, concave hits that heave in-and-out around Andrews' synthesised blooms.
Plenty of artists have tried to capture the energy of experimental electronic music and augment it with organic, live drums, but few have achieved such coarsely textured results. 'Yucca' feels like a labor of love, a record that's careful to tip its hat to the innovators before showing its full hand, and most importantly, it hits fucking hard.
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Edition of 500 copies. Includes postcard.
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Mining the same rich timbral and conceptual pool as goat(JP), Mark Fell / SND, Gábor Lázár, Beatrice Dillon etc, Church Andrews and Matt Davies find complexity in minimalism on a really strong new album tipped if yr into any of the above - you know the vibe.
Built around rhythmic ratios from the Fibonacci sequence, Church Andrews and Matt Davies' latest album is a tightly wound hybrid of labyrinthine, dextrous live drums and the kind of cybernetic FM tweakery that you'd expect to find on a Rian Treanor LP. 'I’ve always been inspired by music that is complex without sounding complex' says percussionist Davies in the 'Yucca' press release. Hearing the album, it's obvious what he's talking about: there's a level of swing to the tracks that immediately pulls you in, but it's deviously intricate.
The duo are inspired by Terry Riley's levitational minimalism and the intricate drumming of John Coltrane collaborator Roy Haynes, but their music is just as connected to hip-hop, specifically the kind of swayed, groove-fwd expression of innovative producers like Dilla and Madlib. Working with just a single synth and live drums, Davies and Yorkshire-born producer/composer Church Andrews' limitations are their strength, refined to break conventions rather than follow the obvious DAW-layered path. Sitting face-to-face, they make music that's mathematical - 'Yucca's beats are formed around the Fibonacci sequence's spiral patterns - but eerily organic, dipping and curving taut zigazagged drums around brushed aluminum synth palpitations.
'Winston' recalls Gábor Lázár's collapsed grime cogitations, spacing crystalline thonks between tempo-fluxed rhythmic bursts. Their rhythmic template sounds as if it's slithered out of FlyLo's locked hard drive, but the synthwork is pure Eski via Rian Treanor: twitchy and serpentine, enhanced by advanced technical knowhow. On 'Chirp' they speed up Radian's early Mego blueprint, disrupting skillful stickwork with urgent neo soul rimshots and gliding oscillations that trap themselves in brooding pauses, and on 'Ferns', they capture the ooze of the outside world, working off-grid and dancing around the golden ratio as if they're fractals. Astonishingly, the music never gets ensnared in its own concept; Davies and Andrews are light-headed on the title track, maintaining the momentum while they take liberties with the microscopic details. Davies' interest in free-jazz drumming radiates the whole way through, all woody, concave hits that heave in-and-out around Andrews' synthesised blooms.
Plenty of artists have tried to capture the energy of experimental electronic music and augment it with organic, live drums, but few have achieved such coarsely textured results. 'Yucca' feels like a labor of love, a record that's careful to tip its hat to the innovators before showing its full hand, and most importantly, it hits fucking hard.