Carrier – Rhythm Immortal

The debut album by Guy Brewer’s new alias Carrier is – like so much formative electronic music – a fusion of what already existed. While earlier EPs such as In Spectra or Tender Spirits placed a stronger emphasis on percussion, Rhythm Immortal slows the momentum into a structure of unusually physical drums and enigmatic sounds. Carrier moves into markedly more atmospheric territory here, embedded within a broad and precisely articulated dub, drum & bass and ambient continuum, supplemented by carefully placed contributions from Voice Actor and Memotone.

On Rhythm Immortal, Carrier communicates a highly personal pulse that leaves ample room for individual association. Tension without release is the guiding principle. Subtle shifts in hi-hats, reverbs, delays and coarse noise evoke associations with Rhythm & Sound and Monolake, as well as the aesthetic of 1990s drum & bass in the vein of Source Direct or Photek. His final album under the Shifted alias, Constant Blue Light – with its focus on microscopic movements of percussion and synthesisers – also reverberates here.

The eight, at times unsettling tracks are not aimed at the dancefloor. Instead, Carrier invites the listener into a self-contained cosmos – a dark yet alluring shadow world of dance music, in which percussion initially seems to move backwards before discharging forwards.