PRICE:
$15.50
IN STOCK
ARTIST
TITLE
Happy Hour
FORMAT
CD

LABEL
CATALOG #
WHITEBOX 011CD WHITEBOX 011CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
11/8/2011

After his impressive solo debut, Consolamentum, Manchester-based musician Richard A. Ingram returns with another slab of implacably somber cinematic electronic music. Perhaps without acknowledgement, Happy Hour occasionally hints at Rhythm & Sound-style analog manipulations, and at other times is reminiscent of Andrew Chalk's darker excursions. There are puzzles within this music too; clues lie within the titles, within the CD text and the audio itself -- we'll say no more, they are there to be uncovered. Richard's music has something of a signature lo-fi quality -- one which mangles the original sound source in such a way that you're not entirely sure what it is you're listening to. Album opener "Agile Drone" certainly highlights this, with what sounds to be a peculiar, tape degraded/filtered piano; shifting through resonant frequencies, bellowing and morphing, then decaying almost to the point of silence before delivering the album's killer bass drop. "Truncheon Tree" is perhaps more closely related to the Consolamentum material, with a sampled piano loop which slowly expands to a peak before resolving right back where it began. The album's final tracks entitled "Chaos Fortifier" and "Retro Morph" venture into the realms of aural perversity akin to the compelling yet disturbing visuals of Gaspar Noé (Enter The Void and Irreversible) and Michael Hanake (Funny Games) -- music as harrowing as it is euphoric, creating almost drug-induced states of unrest. Limited to 250 copies only.