Somehow, Stephen Ellison can do whatever he likes and still has the world lying to his feet. This hasn’t changed with Pattern+Grid World, either, the follow-up EP to this year’s excellent Cosmogramma. Seven tracks allow us to become a part of the abstract sound-worlds created by the exceptionally talented musician from California and seem to zigzag on the way between Mercury and Jupiter. Care for an example? Jurassic Notion/M Theory begins quite conventionally with sampled drumsticks, these are quickly accompanied by a dissected, brute Kickdrum before the Tribal finally goes wild: the whole track increases its tempo, the digital drum-roll picks up speed, is broken, then swept away by monstrous bass-lines and finally knocked on the head with Martial Arts-microsamples. Also not from this world: Kill Your Co-Workers, of which the shuffle-beat coquettes with a girl’s room melody by his congenial brainfeeder-buddy Daedelus. Then it softly dies away in arcade-sounds, only to be topped yet again by the following PieFace in tried and tested mix-tape-manner. Pattern+Grid World is altogether less jazzy than Cosmogramma, much more down to earth and still utterly outrageous.
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West Mineral