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New Beta

Powell

New Beta

Label: Diagonal

Genre: Electronica / Ambient / Experimental

Availability

  • LP €21.99
    Out of Stock

Powell returns to the fray with New Beta Vol. 1 - seven upfront and disarmingly colourful tracks that harness a renewed energy following the intense period of production behind his densely packed debut LP, Sport [XL, 2016]. Thanks, perhaps, to a looser approach and influx of new ideas and machines, the results find him at his most playfully experimental and nuanced, revealing new aspects to his mongrel sound not heard in previous releases.

New Beta Vol. 1 will remind you of what made Powell’s music so exciting in the first place - goofy, unhinged sounds sculpted into hard-to-resist and unpredictable arrangements - but in a brighter rush of clashing tones and splintering rhythms that reinforce his roots in jungle/DNB, wave and early Belgian techno. The result is something comparable to a puckish take on AFX’s mutant Analords or Actress’ discrete circuits.

This first volume [there may or may not be more] is effectively the sound of someone raised on all the raving music that the UK post-2000 and the internet has to offer. But rather than some millenial emperor’s new clothes, New Beta weaves its references obliquely throughout the record. Whether in the curdled gob of chromatic acid opener Teddy, the clash of tart electro arpeggios and stepper drums of Freezer, or the off-the-cuff electro BEATdown of The Bust, Powell persistently transcends his influences in a way that’s key to all his work and always thrilling to hear - proving how to do reverential without being derivative.