EP: 10-20 – Mountain (Highpoint Lowlife 2010)

The third of the Landforms quadrilogy, Mountain, is the least accessible of the series so far. Although the typical 10-20 elements are all in place – the broken beats, distortion and sounds of knackered machinery – there’s something missing from this EP. The first three tracks in particular sound paradoxically both overcooked and unfinished. The beat abstraction of Globe sounds like a cousin of Autechre’s Confield that has been left out in the rain to rust, but doesn’t really go anywhere. Similarly, Majik takes the rhythm up to techno bpm, but the end result is a bit of a mess. Opener Wercc has a little more going for it, with the trademark cranks and clunks overlaid by delicate free jazz touches, but these are all but obliterated by the churning beats.

Only Littoral really works. The beats are pushed back into a fog of sound that is a little like Disco Inferno’s late EPs, and there is a simple analogue melody driving the track forward. Perhaps it’s too much to expect Ed Davenport to match his own high standards with every release, but the tracks on Mountain do seem a bit like cast-offs.

Tracks
1. Wercc 3:45
2. Globe 5:22
3. Majik 6:49
4. Littoral 6:21

Websites
highpointlowlife.com
www.myspace.com/1020musik

EP: 10-20 – Lake (Highpoint Lowlife 2009)

The second of 10-20’s Landforms quadrilogy of EPs sneaked out just before Christmas. Lake is a more succinct and tightly edited proposition than the more expansive Island, with all four tracks clocking in at around the four minute mark. Ed Davenport’s trademark rhythms are present and correct, with the staccato stutter of Autechre, swathed in cobwebs and the creaks and hiss of old machinery. Where Autechre’s beats are gleaming polished chrome and glistening quicksilver, 10-20s are creaky and leaky, like faithful old engines.

The melodies are equally cracked and wheezy, almost like the shadows of a time-ravished beauty where the glow of youth has long faded but the dignity and character remain undiminished. “Overloam’d” has the blips and pulses over battered arcade machines and a simple melodic loop. “Endzone” runs on a squelchy clockwork rhythm, while Boat creaks like a rusty old tub. Oddly, the latter is the most club-friendly of the quartet with a bass groove that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Gas record. The shredded melodies of Golgotha give it an introspective and plaintive feel. It’s a downbeat way to end an EP that shows no sign that the Davenport idea factory is in anything but very rude health.

Tracks
1 Overloam’d 4:22
2 Endzone 3:44
3 Boat 4:15
4 Golgotha 4:17

Websites
highpointlowlife.com
www.myspace.com/1020musik

Album: V/A – The Wire Tapper 22 (The Wire Magazine 2009)

The 22nd Wire Tapper comes with this month’s copy of the mag. It’s one of the strongest and most diverse yet – a great improvement on #21. Rather than write a long spiel, here’s 20 tracks in 20 sentences.

1. Stearica feat. Dälek. Big beats, distorted viola and all round heaviness combined with MC Dälek at his most downbeat, a magnificent start.
2. Arturas Bumsteinas String Quartet. Effective combination of melancholy drones and free violin lines.
3. Shits and Giggles. Stoned hippies with a deluded sense of their own wit and neatly summed up by the first four letters of their name.
4. Zenlo. Primitive sounding collision between early Cabaret Voltaire and Little Walter – great stuff.
5. Marcus Maeder. Near total silence punctuated by occasional quiet electronic rumbles.
6. Yoshio Machida. An excerpt from a live improvised piece using steel pans (they sound like steel drum – the same thing?) that turns something that’s usually joyous and danceable into something almost eerie and otherworldly – probably best heard in its unedited form for full effect.
7. Tomoyoshi Date & Corey Fuller. Beautiful poetic meditations over a melancholy backdrop of piano and electronics that are moving even if you don’t speak a word of Japanese.
8. Elodie Lauten. Excellent rolling, tumbling piano improvisation.
9. Clang Syne. Crepescular folk-noise that’s a little like Baxters’ era Jefferson Airplane but looser and darker; potentially a real find.
10. Climax Golden Twins. A little lame – Chinese scales played on acoustic guitars with no real gusto or tempo and ending up sounding like a learner’s piece.
11. Netherworld. Right up my street, this, a hypnotic, classical loop-based concoction of field samples of glaciers that slides along eerily until its sudden stop.
12. 10-20. An M M & M favourite, “Athens” is another winner that sets off like a bunch of pinball machines on speed before it begins to clear into a heavy machine-like rhythm.
13. Franck Vigroux. Wow! One for Pan Sonic fans as electronic pulses are swathed in bursts of noise like high velocity wind, building up a momentum all the way until the circuits seem to fizz and burn with electricity overload.
14. Arrington de Dionyso. A scary combination of roaring throat-singing, pounding drums, fucked-up organ and bursts of reed – like Beefheart crossed with a very angry grizzly bear (the animal, not the band)
15. Pink Mountain. A fun and gloriously heavy combination of pounding psychedelic doom metal and “Astronomy Dominie” type vocal harmonies.
16. Jørgen Plaetner. Nearly fifty year old electronic music based on oscillators and frequency pitching that doesn’t sound nearly as dated as it might, in fact it’s dark and engrossing.
17. Angkorwat. Pleasing laptop funk with strange wailing voices that sounds like it was recorded through a battered transistor radio.
18. Abreator. Bass-heavy Autechre beats combined with a droning analogue organ melody that gives the speakers a good shaking.
19. Oki Dokie. 74 seconds of machine driven hardcore – the missing link between Minor Threat and Nine Inch Nails
20. Keyboard Choir. A beautiful way to end proceedings with a nocturnal, Eno-esque keyboard melody full of a cosmic sadness.

Tracks
1. Stearica feat. Dälek – Occhio (edit)
2. Arturas Bumsteinas String Quartet – Karlstad
3. Shits and Giggles – Ripcord
4. Zenlo – The Crab
5. Marcus Maeder – Quadrate
6. Yoshio Machida – Setagaya Art Museum, Sep 28 2008
7. Tomoyoshi Date & Corey Fuller – Seiya
8. Elodie Lauten – Cat Counterpoint
9. Clang Syne – A Death and a Vision
10. Climax Golden Twins – Chinese
11. Netherworld – Aurora Borealis
12. 10-20 – Athens
13. Franck Vigroux – New York
14. Arrington de Dionyso – Rasa Sentuh
15. Pink Mountain – Ditch Witch
16. Jørgen Plaetner – Beta 1962-63
17. Angkorwat – Big / Little Edie
18. Abreator – Flagg
19. Oki Dokie – The Monad
20. Keyboard Choir – Tokyo at Night

Websites
thewire.co.uk

Album: 10-20 – 10-20 (Highpoint Lowlife HPLL034 2009)

10-20 hails from Devon, a county best known for lush, green hills, windswept moors, seaside resorts and clotted cream teas. What it’s definitely not known for is claustrophobic, dense urban darkness and grinding industrial grime even though the south west of England was the birthplace of steam power – Thomas Newcomen, who built steam powered beam engines to pump water from tin mines, was born in Dartmouth in 1664.

10-20’s self-titled debut album harks back to Newcomen’s machines in places. Both “nei” and “jjuvxszla” (all the tracks have titles that suggest 10-20’s pet moggy was walking across his laptop at the time) are underpinned by percussive loops that suggest mighty industrial machines. Around the central rhythms, a thick soup of electronic clicks, booming bass pulses and general babble coalesce. There is melody, but it is sketched and implied rather than out front.

“wdtrhjvelgrad” (“and now on Top of the Pops it’s 10-20 and a number called ‘wdtrhjvelgrad’” – doesn’t quite work, does it) is full of asynchronous beats and twisted rhythms with a simple, cracked synth line for colour, and tortured vocal samples. Best of all is “InB” which finds a rare beauty amongst the dirt. A thudding pulse, fizzing molten drips and squelching electronic tones are overlaid by a delicious minor key melody and what sounds like a distorted fairground pump organ.

This is quite a challenging work, but there is something hypnotic about it, despite its rhythmic complexities. Pertinent comparisons could be made to Pan Sonic and Autechre, but there is more of a sense of dirty fingernails and oily boiler-suits about it than white-coated technicians. It feels more akin to engineering and industry than to pure science. It’s a claustrophobic work with occasional shafts of sunlight gleaming through, but nevertheless hugely engaging. It’s certainly one of the most original electronic albums I’ve heard for a while – I think we’ll be hearing a lot more from 10-20 whoever he or she may be.

The album is available to download from March 16th.

Tracks
1 milvus 6:25
2 nei 4:55
3 jjuvxszla 6:22
4 wdtrhjvelgrad 6:50
5 InB 6:20
6 arcadeagle 8:06
7 sA 6:12
8 unde 5:16

Website
highpointlowlife.com