Label: Context - CON001
Format: Vinyl, 12", 33 ⅓ RPM
Country: UK
Released: 14 Apr 2022
Genre: Electronic
Style: House, Techno, Abstract
Hydraulic, precision-engineered percussive workouts from gifted Cumbrian producer Contours via his own freshly minted Context label.
Longtime followers of the store may be familiar with Contours’ now cult LP ‘Balafon Sketches’. Its seamless integration of traditional Indonesian / West African percussive patterns together with subtle electronic textures and classical elements made for one of the most riveting, multi-referential listening experiences of its time. Our local man now channels his acute production abilities and finely tuned ears for texture and rhythm into some of sturdiest, most inventive club tracks encountered for some time. Four prime cuts of bold, heavily swung, laser-sighted dance music - colliding the polymetric elements of UK dance traditions with synthetic melodies of the best Detroit house records with deadly execution. Imagine Sensate Focus jamming with Theo Parish and you’re not far off. Monster 12”! (Mint / New - shops pls ask for wholesale)
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Following excursions into the liminal spaces between ambient, jazz and minimalist percussive sonics via the self released Balafon Sketches and subsequent Elevations album on Music From Memory; Contours latest offering, Perc EP sees the producer and percussionist deliver a series of club ready percussion work-outs.
Perc EP came out of the same period in which Elevations was being recorded, offering an outlet for the more overtly club focused impulses still being incubated. The EP was built through a period of sampling and resequencing live captured percussion, lending the tracks a particular quality that merges organic and sequenced temperaments.
Eschewing straight up 4/4 frameworks, Perc EP takes on a broken rhythmic framework with nods to Detroit house, dub techno and UK club permeations. The result is a hypnotic rhythmic trip through evolving synthetic textures, and a collection of club indebted tracks formed from initial explorations into rhythmic interaction.
Early support from Gilles Peterson, Steve Barker (On The Wire), Volcov, Marshmello, Kirk Barley/ Church Andrews.
Tracklist
A1: Contours - Finding Space
A2: Contours - Glow
B1: Contours - Joining The Dots
B2: Contours - Sterile Light
