Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you get to be in on something special, very early. In the know. Ahead of the pack. On even rarer occasions, you get to be involved, even obliquely, in something very special, very early. Those moments are few and fleeting and when they come, you’d better hope you’re ready. Will you recognise the signs? Will you hear the siren call? Or will the dawn chorus fade into noise all too quickly? From small turquoise acorns…
So here we are. An awful lot has changed in the almost three years since the collective talents of Twoism.org released their last bedroom-studio opus in 2012. An Arab Spring rose and fell, Aphex Twin sprang into action like a once barren desert wadi suddenly bursting with life at a pace we couldn’t keep up with, and strange probes landed on distant comets or performed drive-by’s on exo-planets billions of miles from the Hexagon Sun. Heck, even Boards of Canada deigned to release a new album. Rumours of ice ages passing or hell freezing over went unconfirmed.
Was Twoism.org’s own mix-meister general, aka Grim on Mbient, ‘Perfecting Sound Forever’, or just sounding forever perfect when he announced the new record would be with us shortly while we huddled in corners against the darkness of 2015’s winter months? Thankfully, it would seem that lessons have been learned from BOC themselves – if not directly in terms of sound (although clearly there are moments of outright homage. This is a Twoism.org release, lest we forget) then certainly in terms of quality control, attention to detail, refusal to compromise.
Let me be crystal clear from the outset – for there can no doubt whatsoever - this is by some distance the strongest OOT release so far. Nothing else you’ve heard before even comes close. The difference here is so marked it’s actually difficult to go back and listen to those early works, good though they are. This is a true watershed moment.
So how does it sound? Huge. Ominous. Dark. Fragile. Playful. Beautiful. All this and more. Listening to the record over the past few months, from an initial rough mix, right through to the brilliantly mastered final cut (Ochre, take a bow) it’s become clear that while each of these tracks are masterful in their own right, collectively this is so much more than the sum of its parts. All killer, no filler? Too bloody right mate.
One of the criticisms I’ve sometimes levelled at previous releases was that they could be a little lengthy, a little ‘flabby’. Sure they were fun and well produced, but I’d always find my attention wandering after a while. None of that can be said this time. This is a leaner, meaner, HUNGRIER OOT. It’s a honed Mexican prize fighter of a record, a pitbull with an attitude and it’s going to earn your respect, whether you know it yet, or not.
And here’s the thing that catches you off guard, sure you’ve got your backmasked vocals, and your sun-drenched synths full of wow and flutter. Yes, you’ll find shoreline field recordings morphing into ominous weather reports washed dreek with drone heavy guitars that Mike and Marcus, or even Messer’s Wilzie and McBride would be proud of. Of course you get SH101 basslines and glitch-filled chopped up beats and phrases that could have come straight out of Telephasic Workshop. But oh me oh my, there is more. There is so much more. This is the moment when the BOC-esque fanboys finally struck out on their own and planted their own flags. Make no mistake, this feels like these artists have grown up and found their own path. And it’s a little bit magnificent.
From the opening few seconds of Warm Waves by Hiflier, you know – you just know – this has been worth the wait. Guitar swells soak and smother your ears in dread while a distant storm warning is put through the ringer, vocoded and pitchbent within an inch of its life, ramping up to an almost frantic climax as thudding percussion rumbles into view like a cumulonimbus.
Suddenly, the gathering clouds burst and the pace rises as Simulate Televangelist by Sanctum looms into view. Any lingering doubts quickly evaporate to nowt. If this one doesn’t get your neck moving then I suggest you check your pulse. Glitched background noises come and go at speed, vocals and percussion drag you along by the lapels. THIS is the one and it knows it. Towards the second half of the track, the tempo and feel changes suddenly. Jilted Generation synths fight with audio banshees as a thumping bassline keeps the whole thing welded together like an oil tanker, before it all breaks apart, run aground on the rocks of glorious discordant NOIZE! Total chaos ensues, bird calls, staccato diced vocals. It’s got the lot. A behemoth of a track.
After such a frenetic opening, Drifting by Eyesix & Shane Anthony comes as something of a relief from the paranoia, a gasp of air for a drowning man. More mid-paced, this feels like waking after a particularly vivid nightmare. What sounds like live drums underpin a gorgeously rich track where waves gently lap and faint, half heard vocals make this the first real ‘old skool’ BOC-esque track so far.
The seque into Twilight Interface –Thunderbird is so seamless that for weeks I didn’t realise this was actually a separate track, despite a completely different main riff. One of the few genuinely warm tracks on the record, Grim’s genius mix flows beautifully at this point, pulling us along.
But like a summer in the Arctic, grab these moments of light while they remain. Any thoughts of respite are short lived. The temperature falls away again with Synthetrix - Sequestered Sonata Above the Grass. This is a genuine ‘builder’ of a track with Synthetrix carefully constructing a sense of theatre and drama over the opening to the track. Subtle sounds come and go. Is that a flag flapping in the background? An unnerving rattle similar to the slide projector in Kid For Today is barely audible, but totally intriguing. Synths swell and overlap beautifully, adding to the tension, keeping you waiting. Finally, and perfectly timed, a monstrous bassline and razor sharp hi-hats take the whole thing stratospheric before a perfect BOC-like synth line seals the deal. At over 6 minutes long, this is the longest track ever to grace an OOT release, yet it never outstays it’s welcome for a second.
And it’s around about now that you might expect things to flag a little perhaps? Get a little samey, or for the early bombast to begin to settle? Instead, things start to get very, very clever indeed.
Девять by Scyye is nothing short of sublime. Девять, as those familiar with the Cyrillic script will confirm, means nine in Russian, but this is definitely a ten. The main line sounds frustratingly familiar, yet weeks later I still can’t place it. Canon in D by Pachelbel? No, that’s not it. But perhaps that’s its genius? I know I’ve heard this before, years ago, and yet….perhaps I’ve not? Perhaps it’s just that good and I think I’ve heard it somewhere before? Like when you meet ‘the one’ and man, you just KNOW straight away, right? Regardless, this again highlights the miraculous ability of Grim to marry tracks that have no earthly right to go together, because what follows next can only be described as sensational.
Without skipping step, guitars blossom up like gossamer on a summer evening breeze. And then we get vocals. Not vocal snippets, or samples, or vocoded recordings of famous speeches, fun though those are. Proper vocals. And what vocals too. Double-tracked yet fragile in their delivery, on Keep You Here, Bearhead provides the jaw-dropping moment of the entire record. In a year which gave us Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens, a record so delicate it almost needed velvet gloves, this outstanding track feels like it takes those gloves and slips them on lest it collapse under the weight of its own emotions. When he sings ‘Nowhere to go! But you can’t stay here. Who will keep you here?’ Bearhead takes us to a place that is at once lonely and yet feels like home. Frankly, it’s breathtaking. As the guitars gently fade, you find yourself wanting to reach out and make it come back again. You long for more.
And how exactly do you follow that?!? Well, you could always try going to possibly the most eclectic and downright bonkers run of tracks on the record, right?
Naturally, you’d start with Sweguno - Swallow Illusions Whole, a track where ethereal vocals soar, playing high in the air like the angels from the Ark of the Covenant, where 80’s Tears for Fears backing vocals sit alongside a chiming, almost oriental lead synth before a stunning classical piano line leads us out of the asylum. This is a track that never sits still, never settles for what it’s got, and always looks to take us somewhere new. The vocals whisper ‘Just a dream’ and they could be right. A blissful nightmare.
And then, bang on cue, Sadsic comes along with two tracks that only lead us back off down the rabbithole again. With Clocke, hand claps and machine-gun-fast loops chop and change like a Tourette’s sufferer on speed. Then, we get the sucker punch of Danger Planet smacking us in the solar plexus for good measure. It’s all a little bit barking and it’s also totally and utterly glorious.
On and on they come, SEVEN – Airplane has a piano line that reminded me of Helios, only for more ridiculously fat bass to land on us like a C130 full of cement.
Thankfully, Grim realises we’ll start flagging if this pace keeps up and throws us a bone to let the dust settle. He’s got the confidence to know just when to change things up, even when things are going just fine as they were.
[MIIIIM] - Nawb Vrida provides the Collapse moment of the mix, a collage of field recordings, masked vocals, heavy breathing (?), cars pass by on deserted roads, reversed vocals, radio noise. The timing is spot on and it all feels like we’re being set up for the home straight. Which of course, we are…
MotorRad - Systems 2 is a case study in the old adage that less is more. No percussion, only 3 notes on repeat and yet it works. It also colludes with TTK - High and Low to engender a false sense of security. TTK has delivered his best work here. It’s stealthy, it’s slinky, in places it’s a little bit sexy. Somewhere we hear a phone off the hook, and could that be a train horn in the distance? The bass line is nothing short of wonderful. Nasal and reedy to begin with, but it flares open into a monster. The main synth line, again, almost 8-bit in it’s simplicity to begin with – but it’s just toying with us. When the whole thing suddenly kicks in, well, wow. There’s a cheeky sense of playfulness here and it’s all the better for it. One of the growers that you just know people are going to come back to more and more as time goes on.
As we turn the corner into the final stretch, Olaf Olson - Interlude 2 and Island Near the Clouds - In Parallel set things up nicely. A small but perfectly formed vignette followed by an almost Happy Cycling, hip hop on psychedelics track which twists and turns in all the right places and certainly doesn’t disappoint.
And suddenly, almost before we’ve realised it, we’re at Polar Sky - Antaku-3. BOC references abound, with drums that could have come from Seeya Later, and micro-glitches that remind the listener of Amo Bishop Roden. But, as with all these tracks, it never feels clichéd. It’s always homage, rather than banal photocopying. Emotions run high, with soaring synths underpinned by stirring strings, and as the echoing percussion brings things to a close, you begin to realise that 47 minutes just passed and yet it felt more like 20. Suddenly, as quickly as it arrived, it’s all over.
All farewell fire’s should be sudden. A masterpiece.
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