Just five tracks and not even twenty minutes playing time – that’s all that Stuart Howard delivers on his second EP for Brainfeeder, »Some Other Time«. But even this very short time implies a step forwards. An urge for change resonates in every note of this EP, because Mr. Howard pays more attention to detail now. »Forgetting and Learning again«, featured by Kerry Leatham, runs through broad synthesizers and adds a light melody to it all. The structure of »Strangling You with the Cord« seems to be crackling everywhere, until Howard releases the bass above the track. All this happens with seemingly rigid calculation, which still works out in »Some Other Time«. All the signs are set to logic from the beginning on, and still there is nothing too cool about tracks like »Quartz« or »Close Call / Chop Cuts«. And that’s due to Howard’s feel for the right moment. He built the structures so that they simply interlock on »Some Other Time« and thereby create a denseness, which we wouldn’t have expected from an EP like this. In addition, the fact that »Some Other Time« comes from Brainfeeder hovers over the whole record – the label and refuge of artistic exchange has put yet another great artist on its list of contents. And even though Howard works like mad on surfaces and moods, it seems to be more of a five-finger-exercise, a sketch for something much bigger. He’d certainly be capable of it. Because there’s more slumbering within that sound – much more.
Some Other Time
