Craven Faults: Sidings

"Ringing piano eighths gallop at a brisk mid-tempo, while percussive hits ring out in the distance. A rich, staccato ramp wave pitched an octave lower begins faintly doubling the piano, drawing closer over the course of a few bars. Once a kick drum materializes on the horizon, the piano line's accents shift position, like the swift readjustment after a skipped heartbeat."

"It's a process he discussed in a recent interview with Sun13, explaining that he was initially drawn to the modular for its ability to produce "interlocking patterns of notes with gradually shifting textures and tones." His goal isn't to craft through-composed switched-on symphonies; instead, he prioritizes communing with the synthesizer itself, meditating on a phrase before making subtle but seismic changes."

"The effect is disorienting, akin to watching a tire and its hubcap rotate in seemingly opposite directions. As the song progresses, more elements—slow-moving filter sweeps, waltzing arpeggios, a deep and doomy bassline—appear and disappear, moving into the fore of the stereo field before corroding and flaking away. Time moves in hypnotic curls more than it progresses linearly, shedding any sense of beginnings or endings."

Ringing piano eighths, distant percussive hits, and a staccato ramp wave create a shifting rhythmic illusion at the start of "Stoneyman," with piano accents readjusting after a kick drum to produce a disorienting, opposite-rotation effect. Slow filter sweeps, waltzing arpeggios, and a deep doomy bassline glide into and out of the stereo field, corroding and flaking away so that time moves in hypnotic curls rather than linearly. The shadowy UK synthesist has refined a decade-long practice of using modular gear to generate interlocking patterns and gradually shifting textures, favoring meditation with the instrument and incremental but seismic changes to layered, repetitive figures. Presence guides the compositions, which unfold as extended sidelong journeys between patch points. Photographs show wall-sized arrays of 5U modular synth cases.

Read at Pitchfork