Hurra Caine Landcrash – Moving (No Ground r)

Hurra Caine Landcrash is an intriguing work from the always-interesting experimental UK label No Ground R. The solo work of Dan Hopkins and recorded between 2002 and 2004, it seems to exist somewhere in the netherworld between ambient music and bedroom experimentation. It’s charm is that it never really explicitly defines itself and you’re just left with its gentle low key warmth and a lack of certainty of how, or even if the parts fit together. There are moments of inspired idiosyncratic genre bending, such as Seminar 4, which seems to want to be an ambient guitar scape, yet an insistent electronic almost house pulse forms and disparate sounds begin to collide. It’s quite simply constructed yet its desire to move between ill-defined genres results in a number of expectations to form, and then be reassessed as they are consistently thwarted by strange new unexpected and unusual elements. It’s quite inspired yet still emotionally affecting; and whilst Hopkins compositional decisions and intent remain somewhat of a mystery, its impact does not.