Echium - Disruptions of Form (2020)

Absorbing Ambient electronic deep dives on Manchester’s sferic label (Space Afrika, Perila, Jake Muir) from Echium, a secluded producer returning for a 2nd release on sferic, highly RIYL West Mineral Ltd., Vladislav Delay, Jan Jelinek, Pole.

After inaugurating sferic with the ’Synthetic Space’ LP in 2017, Echium now leads the way with a remarkably refined, even meticulous grasp of sound design steering away from purely “synthetic space” to imaginary spaces that smudge the listener’s perceptions of artificial and organic texture, tone and spatial dynamics.

Like the best of its contemporary field, from Vladislav Delay to uon and Heith, the meticulous technical physics of ‘Disruptions of form’ provides the framework for a gently haunting spectra of metaphysical presence or spirited pathos to bleed through and reveal the sort of ghost in the machine that electronic music lovers prize.

Collaged from banks of unfinished material, the results resemble a spongiform patchwork of shine-eye ambient-pop gestures and cosmic electro-acoustic parts that smudge and crystalize into a heavy-lidded, quietly beguiling narrative. The 9 tracks resemble an archipelago of interlinked microcosmos, each a variation of the last, following a deformed geologic chain reaction of events through its terraforming sonic sculptures that appear to describe subaquatic organisms and their environment with close attention paid to both microscopic detail and plangent panoramics.

As part of the next wave of artists innovating within dub techno and experimental ambient zones, Echium looks to loosen up its strictures while playing deep within its unfathomable dimensions, literally urging a dematerialisation of mindsets and musical structures with literal titles such as ‘Collapsed Senses’ and ‘Glacial Rust’ matched by meticulous sound design that surely connotes and evokes their meaning in the most elusively abstract, lushly sensorial terms.