Raime At Juno Download

Review: Raime inaugurated the Blackest Ever Black label, so it makes sense that the London duo should be the first artists on the label's ever growing roster to deliver a full album. Quarter Turns Over A Living Line finds Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead progressing from the sample based material of their early releases in favour of live instrumentation, though the elongated sessions spent "painstakingly piecing together" the hours of recorded music ensures their trademark eeriness and despondency remains intact. There's a boldness of vision apparent from the rumbling, recycled orchestrations of lead track "Passed Over Trail" that captures your attention and doesn't relent from there. "The Last Foundry" comes across like a funeral procession mourning the passing of Skull Disco, while "Exist In The Repeat Of Practice" brandishes the kind of foreboding stasis that was prevalent in much of Demdike Stare's Modern Love Tryptych of releases. A plinking digidub rhythm seems thrillingly incongruous amidst the enveloping sonic drudgery of "The Walker In Blast & Bottle", while Raime could feasibly soundtrack a spaghetti western set in Dante's Hell with "Your Cast Will Tire". Quarter Turns Over A Living Line makes for a quite brilliant body of work that demands your full attention and craves repeat listens.

Review: With a label name like Blackest Ever Black, this was never likely to be a barrel of laughs. Surprisingly, the two tracks here aren't quite as bleak as you'd expect. Opener "The Foundry" is actually quite sweet in a melancholic kind of way, with yearning, heart-aching melodies tumbling over glitchy, industrial-inspired IDM beats. It's like some of Autechre's more ambient moments, only slightly more minimal (if that makes sense). "We Must Hunt Under The Wreckage Of Many Systems" is colder and sparser, as if Raime were trying to soundtrack a paranoid stumble through the kitchen at five in the morning in search of post-club snacks.