ROOF LIGHT: Kirkwood Gaps / What Makes You So Special (Highpoint Lowlife)

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Posted on Jul 9th 2010 01:30 am

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Roof Light: Kirkwood Gap Roof Light: What Makes You So Special

ROOF LIGHT
Kirkwood Gap
HPLL052
Highpoint Lowlife 2010
09 Tracks. 40mins05secs

ROOF LIGHT
What Makes You So Special
HPLL053
Highpoint Lowlife 2010
04 Tracks. 19mins45secs

Kirkwood Gap: Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD
What Makes You So Special: Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD

One of the most consistent and excellent labels to have emerged from the last ten years, Highpoint Lowlife has very much been the labour of love of one man, Thorsten Sideb0ard, who, in the space of ten years, collected some of the most interesting music, electronic primarily, but not exclusively, around. The label has been a welcoming haven for the likes of Fisk Industries, Si-cut.db, Marshall Watson, Like a Stuntman, The Marcia Blaine School For Girls, The Village Orchestra, Bovaflux, Erstlaub, 10-20 and many more. Ten years is a long time, and Thorsten is now turning his attention to writing and drawing a graphic novel, effectively spelling out the end of Highpoint Lowlife. With quite an exiting release schedule coming up, the label is gearing up for a spectacular

Already spotted on Styrax and L2S Recordings in the last year, Roof Light drops his debut album, Kirkwood Gap, on Highpoint Lowlife. The project of South London-based musician Gareth Munday, Roof Light draws influences from a variety of genres, from classic house and ambient to dubstep and garage, building them into particularly effective compositions. Kirkwood Gap is almost a game of two halves. The first four tracks present a series of somewhat introspective pieces driven by lush and elegant soundscapes, ranging from the cinematic Marrying Maidens Fair Of Willow, which opens, with its dreamy electronic washes and rippling sonic effects, and the equally soothing and summery Kite Tails And Redwings, to the totally laidback lazy groove of Daytrips And Starlight. By the time Dawning Near To The Printed kicks in, the mood is already on the turn. Still a rather gentle and moderate piece, its underlying sub-bass and syncopated beat announce quite a substantial change of tone. From there on, Munday moves the rhythmic section right at the front of the mix and ups the tempo pretty drastically, especially on the bleepy Hold It Back, which appears to hesitate between the sophistication of dubstep and the rawer tendencies of garage without ever really settling down for one or the other. Losing My Mind, which follows, stands its ground much more obviously into dubstep, but the omnipresent drone of a siren sends echoes of rave-like techno deep into the foundation of the piece.

Outline To Cross and Taro are much more elegant and layered compositions, which, while quite different in form, elevate this record onto a different level again. Of the two, the latter, with its haunting soundscapes and rather superb use of vocal textures, is the more club-friendly, yet it is also the more minimal, but, while in appearance a pretty straightforward and linear piece, it is in fact quite complex and appears to work on a few levels at once, geared up for the dance floor yet so exquisite that it truly deserves to be listened to properly rather than just heard. The album concludes with the rather superb atmospheric Late Into The Evening where Munday lets the beat drop almost entirely to focus once again on elegant melodies and evocative soundscapes, supplemented here by wonderfully light guitar motifs towards the end.

On What Makes You So Special, announced as Highpoint Lowlife’s last vinyl release, Munday infuses his contemporary urban sound with hefty doses of classic Detroit techno and Chicago house and places these four tracks resolutely on the dance floor. The tone of this EP is much more radical than that of the album. This is obvious right from the title track, which opens, with its heavy rhythmic section and its overtly rave-like siren sequence, but somehow, Munday manages to retain a strong feeling of minimalism throughout which places this track firmly in the here and now. Later on, Prayin’ To T.E. is a much funkier dance floor filler as Munday borrows elements from house music and disco and shape them into a somewhat rather catchy piece of funky tech. The remaining two pieces are much more measured and subtle, but while Face Up (To Your Sensibilities) draws largely from house and techno, Cakes, Biscuits And How’s Yer Father is a much moodier composition which has quite a lot in common with some of the most atmospheric moments of the album.

These two releases, while sharing much in common, are interestingly quite distinct and serve a very different purpose. While What Makes You So Special continues on the élan of previous EPs, albeit introducing a wider scope to the music, Kirkwood Gap sees Gareth Munday widening his horizon quite vastly and embracing a much more atmospheric and cinematic approach, making him one of the talents to watch this year.

Kirkwood Gap: 4.7/5 What Makes You So Special: 4.4/5

Roof Light (MySpace) | Highpoint Lowlife
Kirkwood Gap: Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD
What Makes You So Special: Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD

Filed in Albums,Singles/EPs | Tags: ,
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One Response to “ROOF LIGHT: Kirkwood Gaps / What Makes You So Special (Highpoint Lowlife)”

  1. THE 2010 REVIEW | themilkfactoryon 19 Dec 2010 at 9:02 pm

    […] In The Best Of All Possible Worlds (Not Applicable) 36. ESKMO Eskmo (Ninja Tune) 37. ROOF LIGHT Kirkwood Gaps (Highpoint Lowlife) 38. NIK BÄRTSCH’S RONIN Llyrìa (ECM Records) 39. ON Something That Has Form […]