Brisbane-based duo Lindsay Crawford and Anthea Joanna formed their creative partnership as Youngii in 2009, with the self-expressed aim of “exploring analogue synthesisers and digital visualisations through improvisation and the occasional organic element.” This self-released debut self-titled CDR EP sees Youngii offering up four tracks improvised in realtime on a stripped-back instrumental base; apparently using simply a Juno 6, Nord Lead and a Micro Korg. While there’s certainly an undeniably haunting and hypnotic undercurrent to opening track ‘Hello Huxley Overdrive’s twelve minute long wander through questing melodic analogue textures, twinkling icy foreground notes and the occasional wavering detuned pitchbend, for the most part it’s an atmosphere of wide-eyed, beatific wonder that permeates here.
‘Sounds From Another Valley’ offers up what’s easily the most psychedelically dizzying moment here, emerging over its fifteen minutes from a faint trail of blurred out drones and tentative melodies into sudden vast sweeps of pitchbent harmonics and waspy analogue synth noise. While a palpable sense of menace is suggested at points, it soon proves to be a false alarm as proceedings slowly sink back into a burbling fugue of delayed-out keys and ringing, harmonic loops. Elsewhere, ‘The Last Word’ sees Crawford and Joanna dropping shadowy sub-bass presence beneath a gauzy backdrop of pitched down harmonic drones as distant synths slowly emerge from tentative glitchy burbles into richly arranged pads in what’s easily the most lush and floaty moment here, before ‘Island Of The Day Before’ takes things out into similar ebbing ambient territory to mid period Brian Eno, rippling melodic textures peeking out amidst a rich wash of drones. A strong debut EP that’s distinctly geared towards fans of stripped-back analogue-centred ambiance.
Chris Downton
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