Being familiar with Eric Random‘s Bedlamites days doesn’t really prepare you for the meditative creep of the first three tracks on his Bone Of Contention album for All Horned Animals. A layered ambience that’s masterful, understated, satelliting a shimmery sweet-spot of sweeping melodics.
The first two roam your consciousness, vocal free. “Sentimental Decay”’s undulating hypnotics, the mournful synth lines that dissipate like cat’s eyes in your rear-view mirror added to by the noir-quenched espionage of “Blood Runs Cold”, its tiptoed chords and slinky see-saws setting a satisfying atmospheric that radially sweeps as the taper-torn harmonics weave their impressionistic magic.
The third track, “Moving Ever Faster”, introduces a really nice warm vocal injection (a Gus Gus-like dream) to a hiccuping shuffle and washy synth-phonics, savoury danceables, buttery in ovalled percussives, snaking this oriental melody.
Smeared in a diode joust and splashily percussive skip that stays with you, accumulating into one of the best dance tracks I’ve heard all year… so much oscillating knee goodness. The wriggled and accenting Tetris jiver of “You Seem The Same” duelling in a spandex-like zimmer and humming saw-like synth, its steady beat breezed in sweet dub candy with that whispery jewel of a voice weaving in and out.
Things get more Turneresque on the later tracks; the droplet rhythmics and vaporous Vangelis spidering of “Seethrough” melding rather well to the spacey spiral of “Satellite” as its soupy-stepped reverse candour is steeped in tapering tonality.An impressive set of tunes with real sonic depth, concluding with the soft plumage of “‘Concrete Conversation”‘s undulatory rhythmic with croaking robotics slowly frequency combed to silence. The kind of brilliance that makes you want to explore more of Eric Random’s work.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
