signer - "low light dreams"

while producing in relative obscurity for the last couple of years, bevan smith has garnered a sterling rep as a writer of textured, introspective techno. released under his "aspen" moniker, are you that retail snob? is, like pub's do you ever regret pantomime?, one of those cult albums favoured by trainspotters and guys who subscribe to too many mailing lists (yes, like me). the buzz is justified, and aspen - like so many other bands that i wish i had the time to review - really deserves a greater, more receptive audience. low light dreams, the new album by smith's more ambient concern, signer, just might get him one.

opening with light fails me's porter ricks hiss, low light dreams has firmer referents than the aspen material. smith flirts with the familiar, culling some of the best elements of modern techno - chain reaction's tape degenerations and factory dub, kompakt's shimmering, elegiac popambient washes, even some lo-fi acoustics a la four tet or pan-american - and concatenates them into a vespertine suite better suited to an evening drinking with close friends in that undiscovered bar than to the dancefloor. our home is monolake's cyan without the beats, and you don't miss them; signer's treatment of percussive elements as a means for composition of place, rather than their own pulsing ends, is an experiment that pays off as handsomely on low light dreams as it did for vladislav delay a few years ago. as post obsession leaves you alone in your interiors with distant clanks and drones straight out of an old cold meat industry comp, the tesseracts and labyrinths have never looked so inviting.

for more information, please visit carpark and involve records.

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