Devil In The Detail

If you’ve caught Interchill’s recent releases, you’ll know they’re about as far away from the hammock-n-chillum, Shpongle-lite, Buddha Bar chillout as you can get at the moment. And with this release, they happily move further in the same direction.

On the surface, what Devil In The Detail injects into the downtempo jugular is an element of glitch. Faction’s moody, desolate Molten suggests this shift, before Cheju’s Ergi combines glitch and melody into a moreish, ambient-Warp-y slice of goodness.

Nalepa’s Blue continues the tone, before Ooah’s tremendous Tuesday Again adds some bigroom electro-house touches and creates something simultaneously funky, fluid, individual and impressive. The rambling Flowers Of Wraith’s Aftermathmatics fades into the more-absorbing sounds of Good Buddha’s Party Reserve remixd by Tipper; the latter is a much more satisfying bit of heavy-set triphop.

Gaudi comes up with his best track in ages, Analogue Criteria sitting somewhere wonderful in between Coburn and Prince. And yes, I mean that. Meanwhile Vibesquad pull the rug out from underneath Kaleidascone’s feet so many times, it’s like watching a hilarious videotaped prank.

The most lovable and most surprising track here would probably have to be Eat Static’s. Three Ring Nebula has all the wonder-capture glitter that their recent album De-Classified lacked, so catching it here of all places is as reaffirming as it is delightfully perplexing. The track ebbs and flows effortlessly, like breathing calmly on a spring morning. Fantastic, mesmerising stuff.

Bigeneric’s Appolonia is one of the better glitchy tracks; somewhere between dub, ambient and glitch, it stirs up a mood all of its own before coaxing it, messing with the levels and tones as it goes. Likewise Radiate’s Reverse Engineering, a veritable feast of micronoises and organic, evolving textures.

Tripglitch’s Orgona Motor is interesting but would be better with more Trip and less Glitch: the message sounds muddled, as though you’re listening through some sort of interstellar signal interference. More absorbing are the closing tracks: Chaos By Design’s Immerse being an up-to-date bit of jazzy café music, while Legiac’s Ruler sounds like fifty-years-in-the-future Photek composing a tribute to a recently-deceased Bjork.

Devil In The Detail sets out to wipe clean your conceptions of what downtempo music should be, and in doing so it succeeds. There’s a lot of variety, a lot of new sounds, a lot of balls, and a fair few moments of abject wonder and joy. It might alienate itself from the palates of some downtempo fans, but then this is the point.

As such, I recommend it to anyone with an itch for something a bit new, and to anyone with a fetish for musical postmodernity.