Achrid - Achrid - Benbecula - CD

Scottish label Benbecula has had a great reputation throughout the last few years and having released albums by Christ, Frog Pocket, Reverbaphon and many more, they've now turned their attention to a sister project in the form of the Minerals series.

I haven't heard the first couple of releases but I'm pleased to have aquired a copy of this quite frankly brilliant CD by Achrid which marks a real departure from Benbecula's more tradiotional Electronica sound.

Achrid is the duo of Michael Wright and Tadanae Fujimura and, although I've not come across the name before, this could well be a name to look out for in the future on the strength of this release.

Their self titled, 9-track CD is a collection of live recordings and studio improvisations and it strikes a beautiful balance between the more abstract, glitchy end of Electronica with a sublimely melodic undercurrent that keeps the tracks focused and on course.

From the beginning to the end the tracks are crisp, clean and lovingly rendered with a strong attention to detail and a keen ear for hypnotic sound design and whether they use resonant high frequencies and speaker rumbling sub-bass or looping textures, you can tell a lot of love's gone into the production.

For the most part their tracks are gently rhythmic - that is there are no obvious structures. However they occasionally let rip with a spine tingling moment of pure beat trickery and there are actually several cuts that develop into a 4/4 style... not your average 4/4, of course. This is more akin to an artist like Jan Jelinek or Sutekh with layers of sound intertwined into the mix.

There are nods to Berlin and even Detroit at times, but more than anything you get the feeling that Raster Noton or 12k are labels that the artists admire and the way they have combined these influences is remarkable - they pay homage without ever blatantly copying.

The development of each of the tracks is very clever and changes enough to keep you interested at all times, without chopping and changing too much... you get ample time to enjoy each passage before it mutates into something new. Because of this it's the longer tracks that really stand out and form the main focus of most of the CD - the shorter tracks act as abstract interludes before the main performance, if you like.

This is a prime example of the more accessible end of the experimental Electronica sound and the melding of hissy, static samples and sounds, intense moments of white noise and more traditionally deep chords and textures is very pleasing indeed.

Well played to Benbecula for doing something a bit different and props to the artists themselves for producing an album of such quality. My guess is we're going to be hearing more from these guys.