throughsilver listens to Boxcutter on Radio 1

I downloaded a Mary-Anne Hobbs radio show that contained, among other things, a preview of Boxcutter’s imminent Glyphic album. I scrawled deranged thoughts (from crummy frame of reference) as and when they struck me while listening. Here it go:

Mix just about to start. He apparently wanted to have all the tracks mix in with each other, but that didn’t work, hence doing this mix. ‘Glyphic’ as aesthetically pleasing nomeclature, pseudo-tie in with Pharoahe Sanders and Sun Ra who he digs. Preview of the album. He says it’s sorta dubstep tempo but just wants to think of it as being part of the ardkore continuum, ‘heavy rave’. It’s still got the diamond-cut shards of rhythm with rays of melody peeking through, reminding me a bit of late nineties Autechre. Mary-Anne was bigging up how ‘heartbreaking’ it is, but not so much on the evidence of what I’m listening to. Not quite as Boardsy as I inferred from her description. There’s an almost malicious hiss of atmosphere underpinning the squirming, scattered sounds, like worms in a gas chamber.

Weird injection of jazzy melodies, fluteloops, before the crystal castles of polyrhythmic architechture burst out of the soil. It retains that busy-ness of mix that separated Oneiric from the Burials and Skull Discos. Hint of basslines through crappy computer speakers mean I’m gonna have a field day when this hits the Death Deck. Very dubby, down to the little drum fills. Is this still him? From what I can discern, the mix is deep, so deep. Cool segment of early nineties synth underwater melodies, shimmering rather than squelching, while the bassline wobbles periously close to dubstep cliche.

Getting into pretty lush tones now, with the odd clipped vocal sample rearing its disembodied head. Proper lush bit just now; ‘Treefingers’ with some percussive propulsion getting held underwater and reaching that region of resigned bliss that one visits just before drowning. Then we get a bit of electric piano getting preserved in amber and hurled off the interior walls of a church. Breaks out of pupa into proper melody, flying free into an analogue bubblebath, licking stained glass windows as it goes. It’s like a prog rock song made by Luke Vibert now. This is mad. Clinky bells and jazz breaks. American psychotic sax bits while Phil Collins smashes his drum kit on a PCP bender.

Wow yeah, that’s all from Glyphic. Cannot wait.