Synkro – Acceptance

Label: Apollo

Fans of the music of Joe McBride, aka Manchester’s Synkro, won’t have failed to notice the extraordinary stylistic shift that his work has seen over the last year. In 2012 The dark autonomic workouts of his past took a backseat for the release of the producer’s debut for Apollo Records, R&S’ ambient-inclined sister imprint. On the Broken Promise EP Synkro took the energy down a few notches, dwelling more on mood and emotion than kinetic power. The resulting tracks were interesting but ultimately  didn’t quite stand out enough from the crowd. Now for good or ill Synkro has ventured even further down the rabbit hole on his longest release to date, the moody Acceptance mini-LP.

Acceptance

The move is, as it turns out, largely successful. A focus on lusher, more ambient constructions has allowed the producer to bring out the knack for atmosphere that could always be heard on his early productions, letting the haunting synthwork and angelic vocal snippets take centre stage on a piece that’s more about introspection than the dancefloor. The components that make up Acceptance are generally polished, pretty tracks that sound like a UK take on the LA beat sound, with the Californian funk influence replaced by the ghosts of garage and the bass music scene.

These thoughtful pieces are constructed using a fairly limited sonic palette, but it’s Synkro’s taste and execution that makes the music stand out. Drawn-out ambient washes are lain down like canvas, onto which McBride applies meditative synthwork and a host of impressive atmospherics, ranging from far-off percussive accents to spectral strains of human vocals that get lost in the mix. Despite these changes, echoes of the producer’s percussive past can still be found; gorgeous opener Acceptance trades in slo-mo beatscience and a ghostly, sensual array of vocal samples, while the later Illuminations uses clean snares and claps to bring a momentum to the boomerang bass and distended vocals. The most upbeat number of the collection is also one of its standout tracks in the form of Spirals, where a kinetic rhythm drives a pretty harp loop along some sharp vocal chops that reference the current UK dance scene more than any other tune on here.

Recognition

Despite the occasional nods to his past, the majority of the strongest moments on Acceptance come from the most ambient songs. The deep To Be is an early highlight, showing the full range of Synkro’s new introspective, emotionally complex sound with subtly manipulated vocal samples and a distant percussive clatter. Yet there’s a negative side to all this ambience. The fact that many of these songs are cut from similar sonic cloth means that they can be hard to distinguish between, and some, such as the undeniably pretty Disappear, feel a little empty, without enough substance to really stand out. The inclusion of acoustic textures such as the guitar loops on this and Indigo collab Mutual Divide (which sounds a lot like a lost track from Tycho’s Dive) is a fluid move, but it can’t raise the more unremarkable tracks on the release up from obscurity.

The tracks here are generally well produced and deeply atmospheric, but over a 35-minute runtime it’s hard to not wish for a little more variation and surprise in these sounds, and the listener might be frustrated waiting for Synkro to push the boat out a bit. Acceptance as a whole is meditative and filled with yearning, which will be great for those who love the sound and just want more of the same. But any listeners looking for a little experimentation and a wide range of emotional impact may prefer to look elsewhere in McBride’s discography for more adventurous material.

6.5/10

Indigo – Celestial

Label: Apollo

Although he’s been around since 2008, this has definitely been Indigo’s breakout year, chalking up stellar releases for the likes of Auxiliary and Exit records. The same consistent excellence cannot fairly be attributed to rebooted R&S sub-label Apollo, who have up until now put out mostly average releases by otherwise great producers. So it was with mild trepidation that I started listening to Indigo’s latest EP, hoping he wouldn’t fall prey to the same drop in quality. And for the most part, he hasn’t. Celestial doesn’t rank among Indigo’s best releases, but it’s still a good EP, and easily the best to date in Apollo’s canon.

The reason why the Mindset boss and sometime-Synkro collaborator (Liam Blackburn to his friends) can excel to such heights is because of his fantastic fusion of meticulously engineered atmospherics and twitchy, half-IDM half-DnB beats that always surprise without ever forgetting to pack a punch. On Celestial, it’s clear that by now Indigo has mood down to an exact science. Opener Sea Of Stars trades in lilting beats that keep time over a faded, dubby soundscape, with the surprise emergence of a burbling synthline halfway through to keep it all running smoothly. It’s quite low-key and ambient compared to previous releases, and doesn’t quite do enough to warrant the seven-minute runtime, but works fine as an introduction.

 

EP Clips

Second cut Azha begins with a lovingly detailed ambient soundscape before a simple kick-drum starts the slow-building percussive jam. It might sound basic but there’s a lot of texture to enjoy here, Indigo’s 170bpm beat-science slowing down nicely to allow the listener to bask in the details, such as the outro which pans moodily to bring the track to a close. Detailed they might be, but the first two tracks here are not all that different from one another, and might leave you gasping for a little punch to go with all that ambience. A bit of force is somewhat delivered on third cut Sunrise. Here the beats have a little more urgency, pacing under dubby swipes and some twinkling chimes. It uses most of the same elements as the opening two tracks, but to far superior effect, while a welcome brightness to proceedings.

Up until this point, the trade-off between the beats and the atmosphere hasn’t quite worked in Indigo’s favour, delivering tracks which, while immaculately produced, seem unable to deliver more than carefully curated atmosphere. On closer Keerthana, Blackburn goes all-out ambient, and it’s surprisingly the most successful cut here. The most mournful of an already dark selection, here beats penetrate a deep bed of delicate atmospherics and echo off, half-heard vocals emerging and receding back into the soundscape. It’s emotive stuff, and definitely shows a direction that we haven’t seen in Indigo’s work before. All the same, it’d be hard to call Celestial a hugely memorable release. What’s here is a collection of quiet, atmospheric tunes that will please some in their ambience but leave others wishing that he’d pick a stronger position to occupy between dance and mood, especially considering how brilliantly he’s combined the two in the past.

6.5/10