Guilty C./Pato — Split 7"

An exquisitely packaged seven-inch, here, from Le Petit Mignon records. Designed and drawn by Zeke Clough (who has also done work, most notably, for Skull Disco records), the record has three pieces of card covered in his wonderful creations - half of which are black and white, and half of which are embellished with garish pink and blue. The overall effect reminds me of the Evil Moisture LP on Quick Latin Handful; and, to further the comparison, the Pato side of the seven-inch has similarities with Evil Moisture’s aural methodologies.

Curiously, with such effort given to the visual aspect of the release, the actual sounds themselves seem somewhat basic and disappointing on first listen; but after a while, both tracks reveal greater depths. The Guilty C. track, “Rest In Peace In Town”, is a furious gust of hiss that spirals around the seven-inch. Underneath this arguably simplistic layer of noise is a submerged, more bassy, drone; it alternates between sounding like feedback and sounding more like a bowing noise. This adds an element of suspension to the track, giving it an almost mournful quality.

The Pato track, “Brace Brace“, is a nice cut-up of lo-fi synthesizer, noise, feedback and primitivist computer babble - those kinds of tones. All cut-ups rely on skilled deployment of rhythm, timing, movement and tension; and here Pato doesn’t fail to disappoint. There’s a very lucid sense of progression in the track; the sounds move along in little flurrying clusters, with a surprising sense of space and calm on display. Its not even remotely a breakneck 100mph assault - the pacing is playful, not aggressive and, if anything, it has the same feel as a very early piece of electronic composition. There’s a nice contrast between the crudity of some of the sounds, and the loving construction and attention to detail that has clearly gone into the track. In a piece that's only three and a half minutes long, Pato covers a lot of ground; without ever letting the created tension drop for one second. The more I listen to it, the more it opens out.