Croydon, UK-based electronic producer Jack Marchment first surfaced back in 2006 with his debut “Recordings’ album, released as part of Scottish label Benbecula’ limited “Minerals’ series. A highly conceptual work, “Recordings’ took its inspiration from old recordings Marchment had made during his residence at Oxford University of fleeting ambient electronic noise emanating from the room below him. In many senses, this second album “Corydon & Manjrekar’, released as part of the now-extended “Minerals’ series represents a considerably more accessible proposition than its predecessor, with several of the nine tracks collected here veering closer to regular, loop-based structures and even 4/4 rhythms at points. Opening track “Sebastian’ certainly immediately highlights this approach, emerging from a rippling, almost liquid wash of manipulated noise that gradually resolves itself around a taut, mechanical 4/4 techno pulse, the background swirl of sampled atmospheric chatter and cold analogue synths populated with glittering melodic tones that immediately call to mind Plaid / The Black Dog’ Caribbean steel-drum inflected explorations.
While it suggests further expeditions geared around the 4/4 kickdrum ahead however, ensuing tracks “Beatrice’ and “Paper And Scissors’ see proceedings wandering out further into ambient / IDM territory, the former offering up a gorgeously slowburning crawl throughout downtempo hiphop rhythms and refracted, Boards Of Canada-esque melancholic synths, while the latter rouses itself out its fugue slightly as it sends flickering minimal electro rhythms rolling beneath sampled and looped vocal chatter. In many senses though, I really felt that this album really came alive more during its second half, with “Gavaskar Acid and Polo’ managing to throw some additional retro-electro breakers’ swagger into the equation beneath its backdrop of languid-sounding Moog synth tones, before “Distractions’ takes things out, unleashing by far the most rhythmic ballast out of all the tracks here, with sampled rock drums cutting a taut path beneath psyche-tinged proggy keyboard trills and unsettling reversed drones. Well worth investigating.
