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LUKE ABBOTT

Luke Abbott

Translate

    'Translate' is the first solo artist album in six years from Norfolk synthesizer specialist Luke Abbott: a strikingly direct and assured return to the solo music-making game following a productive diversion into live improvisation with his experimental jazz trio Szun Waves.

    At times dark and ominous, others bright and welcoming, these eleven electronic vignettes form a dramatic and undeniably cinematic body of work which functions as a fitting widescreen soundtrack to our new now.

    The lumbering rhythms, strident synths and distinctive touchstones of 'Translate' represent a musical reconciliation with the directness of the wave-making rolling synth-kraut of Abbott’s forthright debut 'Holkham Drones'.

    Newly-reinvigorated and with a new sense of musical purpose, this is Luke Abbott’s sound fully realised and never so sure of itself.

    STAFF COMMENTS

    Barry says: 'Holkham Drones' was one of my favourite albums for many a year, and still gets a good playing nowadays but nothing has come close to the mind-melting electronic bliss-blanket of 'Translate'. Perfectly split between hypnotic electronic counterpoints and synthy, IDM levity.

    TRACK LISTING

    1) Kagen Sound
    2) Our Scene
    3) Flux
    4) Ames Window
    5) Roses
    6) Earthship
    7) Living Dust
    8) River Flow
    9) Feed Me Shapes
    10) Luna
    11) August Prism

    James Holden & Camilo Tirado / Luke Abbott

    Outdoor Museum Of Fractals / 555Hz

      Holden and Luke Abbott flirt with the new age in this split double album, with a pair of extended synth meditations indulging their respective loves of arpeggio and drone, originally composed for the occasion of Terry Riley’s 80th birthday. Holden’s "Outdoor Museum Of Fractals" fuses the endlessly unfolding fractal complexity of luxurious washes of arpeggiations with the pitched tabla drumming of Camilo Tirado, co-pilot on this hypnotic, meditative journey. Luke Abbott’s metallic gong-drone offering "555Hz" layers this mystical frequency and its related harmonics in a sequence of transportive wave-like swells. Running to over 45 and 30 minutes apiece in digital form but split in two to fit on the vinyl. The heavyweight double vinyl also includes uninterrupted digital download codes.

      STAFF COMMENTS

      Barry says: Border Community head-honcho and fanatic Synthesist James Holden teams up with one of the label's many star signings on this double LP. On one LP Holden jams over the trance-inducing Tabla playing of Camilo Tirado to full new-age effect, whilst on the other, known hardware-fiend Luke Abott explores drone and ambience. Both sides are exercises in skill and restraint and show how truly talented these guys (and generally, Border Community as a whole) are. Worth the effort this one, and a record that reveals more every time I listen.

      Luke Abbott

      Wysing Forest

        Four years of slow-burning success on from the rolling primal rhythms and joyous arpeggios of his 2010 debut album 'Holkham Drones', Luke Abbott makes a bold return to the Border Community with his sublime second album offering ‘Wysing Forest’.

        Named after the Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire who hosted Luke as their first ever musician-in-residence over a six week period during the winter of 2012, the album comprises a series of improvised live recordings, edited and compiled after a period of after-the-act reflection into one rapturous movement. The finished article’s 52-minute duration may have been chopped into nine track-sized chunks for its official album release, but this is most definitely an album which is greater than the sum of its parts, designed to be listened to in one immersive go.

        “‘Wysing Forest’ has a very particular arc to it an the tracks only make sense in the context of that arc,” Luke explains. “Structuring the album to work as a whole was quite a challenge, almost more of a challenge than making the music, but I think I’ve ended up with something that has a kind of internal logic.” And though only a pair of tracks - ‘Free Migration’ and ‘Highrise’, together forming the subtle peak that marks the mid-point of the album - approach ‘Holkham Drones” idiosyncratic lumpen danceability, it is thanks to Luke’s perfectly judged elegant transitional dynamics that neither piece - although as dancefloor-directed as anything he has ever done before - feels out of place amongst the album’s more mellow moments.

        Nils Frahm

        Juno Reworked (Luke Abbott & Clark Remixes)

          After releasing Nils Frahm’s two-track solo synthesiser EP ‘Juno’ in a highly sought after 7” edition, Erased Tapes now re-release the original Juno tracks with guest reworks by Border Community's modular synth wizard Luke Abbott and Warp veteran Clark. Both known for their like-minded use of analogue synthesisers in their music, it makes them the perfect artists to rework the originals. Similar to Frahm’s online project ‘Screws Reworked’, where he invited fans to download his solo piano songs to reinterpret them with their own medium of choice, it’s far from being the typical remix EP.

          ‘Peter Broderick loved the sound of this synthesiser so much, he asked me to record some solo sketches with it. This is what I came up with. I didn't use any overdubs or punch-ins. See it as a synthesiser solo performance.’ – Nils Frahm

          The cover photograph was taken by Peter Broderick and is a result of an unexpected double exposure between his image and the one taken by the camera’s previous owner. Dedicated to his dear friend, the Juno tracks carry the titles ‘For’ and ‘Peter’ and were recorded and mixed by Nils Frahm in his Durton Studio in Berlin.


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