Euhedral is Oxford’s own one-man drone wizard Lee Riley, who here offers three tracks of eminently listenable experimentation on a dinky three-inch CD. I’m not sure of the significance of the letters that make up each track title – those titles being ‘Kerf Caprine’, ‘Carper Knife’ and ‘Pincer Freak’ – but they do reflect the music in as much as they are rearranged, similar units that make up a different whole (although I would have gone for ‘Freak Prince’ or ‘Frank Pierce’ myself…)
‘Kerf Caprine’ sees a looped, slowly modulated melody become buried and blurred beneath mid-level, stretched-out whine. Just as it threatens to disappear up its own drone it is rescued by further layers – a heartbeat-pace pulse ordering the sound into linear flow – before it fades into organic bleeps and blips. ‘Carper Knife’ is more cloying; thick, mechanical, whirling sounds being obscured by dark shadows, almost fading into white noise before returning to gorge on its own feedback. ‘Pincer Freak’ is led by a fantastic-sounding techno thump; a modern disco classic hindered by overwhelming sheets of fog that suddenly lift towards the end of the track. The sound of a distant club space that finishes where it started.
This music sounds like it was improvised and played live, with a great control of loop manipulation and an artistic capture of subtlety and structure. Unlike many followers of the artists Euhedral is, I’m sure, familiar with – Black Dice, Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Double Leopards, Wolf Eyes – there is the good sense here to keep things realistic and rein in any misguided attempts at grand statement-making. The whole CD clocks in at just under fifteen minutes, with rewards to be had by concentrating on each sound being used, following its journey. Whilst there is a hint or two of a tendency to rely on library music/keyboard preset-style sounds – thunder here, twinkling there – Euhedral sounds fresh and original enough to stand out in a musical landscape that’s too full of noise/drone bandwagon-jumpers.