After two abstract, bass-driven records on Mala's Deep Medi label, a tape of improvised electro-acoustic music for The Tapeworm, and a super additon to Honest Jon's Shangaan remix series, now the shadowy audio visual collective known as Old Apparatus have started their own label, Sullen Tone - with 'Derren' their first EP.
The EP opens with the spaced-out 'Zimmer', all Vangelis-like synths and submerged steel drums. Title track 'Derren' leads in with light syncopated grooves and ghostly vocals moving in and out of static, warm synths. 'Dealow' works a mesh of delayed industrial percussion against a pitch shifting female vocal, all founded on a deep sub bass and a dark techno aesthetic. 'Bodah' ends the EP with swung patterns of blissful melodic tones and glassy percussion melting away as the track stretches out into cavernous, cosmic drone.
TIP!