The Cyclist – Requite (Tape Throb Records)

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Irish electronic producer Andrew Morrison graced us with his fourth album as The Cyclist ‘Sapa Inca Delirium’ six months ago, a kaleidoscopic piece of work that saw him combining elements of electro, house and mutant techno with psychedelia to lush and frequently headspinning effect. Perhaps psychedelic dance music is the best description of what Morrison’s pursuing, and it certainly applies to this latest 12” EP on Morrison’s own Tape Throb label ‘Requite’, with the four new tracks collected here arguably leaning even more towards the dancefloor than his preceding longplayer.

As is characteristic for The Cyclist by now, Morrison continues to explore his love of tape distortion and saturation, lending the music here a feel that’s frequently as warm and gauzy as it is woozy and unearthly. Title track ‘Requite’ opens proceedings with a race through rattling broken-house rhythms and throbbing bass surges that opens out into a rush of dark tech-y synth arpeggiation and crushed vocal samples, the propulsive phased textures eventually sinking into a wall of glacial synth melodies at the end.

If it calls to mind one of Luke Vibert’s more 4/4 centred excursions during its first half, by the end there’s more of a sense of Vangelis and Model 500 meeting somewhere in the middle. ‘Chime’ takes up the tech-y house baton and runs with it, injecting more of a sense of warm soulfulness as dewy phased keys and rattling percussion counterbalance the dry snapping snares and echo-treated ragga MC samples that suddenly ripple to the front of the mix.

On the flipside, ‘Brave No Wave’ lives up to its title as treated fretboard slides ricochet like cartoon sound effects off a backbone of crisp electro rhythms and wavering synth riffs, before a funk-infused synth bassline sends the ratcheting snares skipping off in all directions, before ‘Mackabee’ takes things out with a more downbeat reggae-tinged slide through eerily detuned synths, ghostly house beats and vintage astronaut samples. As you’d expect, this is heady stuff, but we’re used to that by now from The Cyclist.

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A dastardly man with too much music and too little time on his hands

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