Li Yilei – Secondary Self

Stepping away from the warm tones and twinkling arpeggio of last year’s 之 / OF and into the abstractions of their live work, Li Yilei frees themselves up on Secondary Self. There is a more improvisational feel to the record, with rhythms and patterns being built and then just as quickly being snaked away from. Take Fwtt, Fwtt, Fwtt, a sputtering maelstrom of a piece, where squelched bass and jagged, glitched feedback wrestle each other into a crushing weight of claustrophobic noise. This unpredictable looseness gives the work a natural quality, less like something composed than something forming out of thin air before you. It works tremendously. 

Despite this approach there’s never the sense that feeling is being forgone in the name of meandering improvisation. It at no point feels like someone aimlessly fiddling with their switches, but rather, something more akin to the live experience; watching someone actively pursuing very specific atmosphere in real time. It makes the moments when everything coalesces, like the howling desolation at Murmur’s mid-point or the mechanical juddering of Mosquito Alarm, all the more impactful.

It’s sonically a faintly scattershot collection on a track to track level, mainly owing to its contents stemming from various projects across the last few years, but Secondary Self is another example of Li Yilei’s inarguable talent for evocative soundscapes.

Listen to: Murmur, Fwtt Fwtt Fwtt, Warmth Ageing