Album Notes

Very much a man who favours the vinyl things in life, Anders Ilar has been releasing some devastating 12"s over recent times - each of which captured his distinct approach to beat mongering despite encompassing a variety of genres. Undoubtedly producing some of his finest work to date, Ilar's recent tenure for Narita Records has seen a royal-flush of releases - previously only released on the black stuff and now collated into a heaving CD's worth of delights as 'Nightwidth'. Whilst these affairs can readily lack coherence or a firm structure, 'Nightwidth' suggests the material was originally written for the long player format - with Ilar managing to weave a delineated thread throughout which takes in raw low ends, dubwise side-steppers, minimal epics and all manner of rigid beat shenanigans. Opening with the overcast noir of 'Radius' (wherein gloopy beats coalesce around some fizzing digital bass), Ilar immediately asserts intent - merging a sense of foreboding and general unease, with a beating heart of chilly house electronics. Twisting this schematic back on itself, next up is 'Black Numbers' - wherein Ilar pebbledashes the composition with bursts of acid nourishment, before 'Downhill' arrives with low end galore and some spiraling sparse techno. Elsewhere, 'Sand' puts on its dubswise shoes for a twirl round the dancefloor, 'Oceanism' is a broiling epic that takes an age to unwind and is all the better for it, whilst 'Rourei' shakes the nerves through half-heard whispers and a rutting four-four regime.