Following her acclaimed tape release 'I've Been You Twice', released on Patten's Kaleidoscope imprint, Karen Gwyer serves up her debut album proper, Needs Continuum. Recorded while she was pregnant with her first child, Gwyer has described the record as "both a product and champion of immutable, organic cyclical rhythms and disorientating psycho-physical disequilibria." That's certainly one way to look at the nine tracks of the seductive digital psychedelia on offer here. Opener 'Sugar Tots' summons Cabaret Voltaire by way of Actress, while neo-kosmische exercise 'Lentil' (we won't make any pulse-based jokes here, tempted though we were) nods in the direction of Laurie Spiegel and Cluster, while 'Pikku-Kokki' and 'Night Nails', the most song-based efforts in the set, are sketches of exquisite techno-pop noir.'Trapezoidal Weekly', 'Waukon' and 'Part B' take us further into immersive new age synth-scaping, but delivered with a sense of drama and scale that prompts well-deserved comparisons with OPN's immense Rifts. 'Jajja Uses Ancentral Spirits' channels fourth world energies through a broadband router, and the soaring choral lines of 'Close Me' bring things to an epic, Motion Sickness Of Time Travel-esque denouement. Space is the place.
Tracklist:
Sugar Tots
Lentil
Pikku-Kokki
Night Nails
Some Of My Favourite Lotions
Trapezoidal Weekly
Waukon
Jajja Uses Ancestral Spirits
Part B
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: UK
Released: 2013
Label: No Pain In Pop
Catalogue Number: NPIP032
£19.99Price