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LP
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OTRLP 011LP
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Andrew Hargreaves (The Boats, Tape Loop Orchestra) presents his striking first works for dance with Pose Plastique; the unrequited, roiling musique concrète score to choreography by Belgian dancer Anaïs Ureel. Pose Plastique marks bends and loops in time as the first release under Andrew's government name since 2010's Avant Garde for ONO, following a period of belligerent industrial rhythms and abstracted electronics with a much more refined sense of bio-kinetic movement captured within stark, echoic space. Pushing himself beyond usual comfort zones, and using a kinetograph score of movements which was effectively illegible to Andrew, the results of Pose Plastique reveal a keen sensitivity towards supple and super spacious sound design, eschewing any sort of "incessant pounding", as he initially feared he was supposed to, in favor of a series of diffused rhythmic triggers and physical gestures that mirror elements of Ostgut Ton's works for dance, Masse (OSTGUT 026CD, 2013), as much as Jeff Mills's most abstract techno navigations and the plonging, weightless meters of Bernard Parmegiani's seminal GRM works. As these things go, the commission never fully manifested. Anaïs ended up disenchanted by dance (not due to Andrew's music) and eventually moved to New Zealand. Fast forward a few years and Andrew made the decision to edit the recordings for this 31-minute release, simultaneously offering encrypted instructions for movement to any willing bodies, while its free-floating sequence of rhythmic and tonal structures act as a hugely absorbing listen in their own right. It's perhaps testament to Andrew's gifted, mutable compositional skills and musical vision that Pose Plastique works in its own right. By his own admission, Andrew's not really a dancer, but he's clearly attuned to what makes abstract dance music tick, and to the integral connection between living bodies and machines, and the way they've become conditioned by electronics ever since the explosion of avant-garde electronic music in the '60s, to the impulses of disco and new wave, and its contemporary application. RIYL: Tony Conrad, Demdike Stare, GRM, Emptyset. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton; Comes on green vinyl; Edition of 300.
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CD
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LACIES 004CD
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Having spent the last few years recording as one-half of The Boats, Andrew Hargreaves has finally finished his solo debut. From the opening notes of "Between The Left And Right Hand," the delicate tone is set, with simple piano motifs intermingling with digital processing to create a unique space. Space is an important element that runs throughout Defragment -- every sound is given room to breathe, designed to encourage the listener to fill in the gaps with their own emotional interpretations. Of course, there is a nod to his main work with The Boats, and certain elements could have been transplanted straight from their extensive catalog. The sound palette is, however, expanded to include label mate Danny Norbury, whose cello adds an extra depth to "Variation Is Repetition" and takes center stage on the heartbreaking "Confusion In Consequence." The final recordings for the album took place while Andrew was touring Japan with The Boats -- the influence is evident in the balanced simplicity of the compositions and mixes. Fans of Danny Norbury, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Alva Noto, and indeed, The Boats should investigate.
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