Echaskech – Origin

With Origin, Hackney's Echaskech return to the more beat-driven, stargazing material of their first two albums, incorporating a wealth of new analogue studio gear, live percussion, and densely textural field recordings. The new tracks have as much in common with the genre-disregarding electronic experiments of Planet Mu artists like Machinedrum and Kuedo as it does with the beat-driven, post-rock soundscapes of Fuck Buttons or even Mogwai; a sense of exploration pervades, and although no astonishingly new vistas are revealed, a great many peaks are conquered.

There are spectral shoegaze guitars and layered synths on widescreen opener Scanners; spare, crunching post-dubstep on Metic, and Paper Scissors (which finishes in glorious static, like an offcut from the Black Mill Tapes by Pye Corner Audio). There is slowly coalescing breakbeat on Telomere; and finally, looped, cosmic techno and reverb-laced piano and guitars on Anomie. The album flows impressively, and while it might meander once or twice, it's easy to be swept away. [Bram E. Gieben]