Having already had our appetites whetted by the early release of ‘Cloddio Unterdach’, one of the five tracks contained on the new EP from North Wales-based producer and musician R.Seiliog, it would be an understatement to say we were looking forward to hearing the full ‘Shedhead’ EP.
“It’s like the slipping clutch of a self combusting engine built from mirrors blackened by astral soot reflecting back the whole in each tarnished component,“ says Edwards, when asked what the EP sounds like to him (which certainly makes a change from the usual). We’d probably put it slightly differently. We might point out that the five instrumentals – which clock in something over the half hour mark in total – really showcase the full range of his sound and will appeal to lovers of the kind of early 90s electronic that R&S, Rephlex and Warp were responsible for at the time.
It’s not quite ambient, although there’s plenty of ambience floating around in ether throughout, and especially the flanged, phasing glory of opener ‘Myopia’ which nods to Global Communication and Reload’s finest hours. But its attitude is not of an entirely horizontal nature, though a long way from the functional thump of the techno dancefloor at the same time. Rather it’s edged along either by the kind of understated clockwork polyrhythms which draw comparisons to early Aphex Twin on ‘Cloddio Unterdach’, or the subtle, laid back pulse that beats under the skin of the EP’s wonderfully grand closing tune ‘Psylent Cluster’.
If forced at gunpoint to pick a highlight, we’d probably still be trying to choose between ‘Hyni In The Ivermind’, half beatless gliding, half infectious breakbeat jiggery-pokery, and the slowed down funkiness of Maxwell’s remix of ‘Static Sun’ when they got fed up and pulled the trigger. That’s because the EP is more than the sum of its parts, nodding to the past but with its own unique and very magical style. Highly recommended.
R.Seiliog’s forthcoming dates:
Nov 25 – Pontypridd, Clwb Y Bont
Jan 18 – London, The Waiting Room
Jan 19 – Brighton, Hope and Ruin
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