Will Schube still listens to his father’s rave records.
Lee Gamble’s Mnestic Pressure is as much a math problem as it is an album. The British producer’s latest LP, released back in October on Hyperdub, is a geometric assault on dance music, a philosophical treaty composed without a word. The album doesn’t groove so much as wobble, shifting from expansive to intensely quiet at Gamble’s whim. Samples are chopped sparingly, if at all, and hardware is sequenced to sound like an alien’s interpretation of modern UK music. In short, this isn’t your father’s drum ‘n’ bass.
We’re premiering the video for “Quadripoints,” a track that would be one of Mnestic Pressure’s standout tracks if the album conformed to such reductive ideas of the concept. Instead, “Quadripoints” slots into Pressure’s grid, sandwiched between the metallic wave of “Swerva” and the minimalist soundscape “You Hedonic.” Rather than attempt to describe the otherworldly electronic landscape depicted in “Quadripoints’” video, we had the artist break down the story behind the visuals.
A ‘Quadripoint’ is a term describing a point on Earth that touches the border of four territories. The track feels a bit illustrative of a tangle, or a tussle or something. This attempt to settle territory and define it—I think you can see this in the video too. Dave [Gaskarth, the video’s director] and I have worked on most of the videos for my music. This has kinda turned into our ‘Foldings’ A/V project, which is a separate project from my output as a solo artist making albums.
Buy Mnestic Pressure here.
