Sarmism – Lessons - Bricolage Records | The Electro Review

Sarmism
Lessons
Bricolage Records
TBR: 25th September


Once again the Bricolage label manifest their dreams through the medium of brilliant electronic music. Glitch, EDM, and complex rhythms combine through hazy and distinguished electronica. This artwork of sound was recorded in Manchester during the Covid-19 pandemic as the mood of the nation and world had turned to concern and anxiety. As per usual, Sarmism utilised live elements during the recording of Lessons as well as programming beats and loops to base the performances on. Let's get going and leave the conscious pandemic behind.


It begins with Waiting For A Call. A serenade of blips loop together like peeling bells. Rattling repetitions form a bubbling mixture as other sounds ring through the plucks and pips. Frantic and long, the music combines short and fast with the melodic and composed. Strings blip like plucks on the head-bridge of a guitar. Drums form as the bars echo into obscurity. A child's voice begins the next number. Ghostly string sounds swell in neat motifs as repeating lines enchant with hypnotic allure. Drumming pushes a rhythm to the front, staggering snare hits rattle to a toughened bass that thumps and boings. This is Shame and it has a playful yet phantasmagoric atmosphere.


Track three begins with jumpy strings and strange vocal qualities that waver over long distances. Electronic distortive effects bring a warm glow which resonates deeper as each sound manifests through the glare. Life Outside opens calmly then injects a series of topographic rhythms into the rolling hills of sound. Jagged hat and snare sections and emotivated toms rumble with a deciduous tide as the variant tones surrounding fetter into tubes. Bells then clamber over the stacked sonics too revel in their own polished splendour. Full Focus Kite Flyer is next. This one reminds me of Geogaddi from Boards Of Canada. Ambient and dreamy soundscapes form clouds of intent as scattering beats distil the liquid into liquor.


Somewhere Someone Cares. We care, don't we readers! That's right, because computer music defines the future of pop, rock, theatre, and everything else that matures in the business. They did it first in their little laboratories with a laptop and a box of dials. We hope in our small way to be able to add to the vocabulary that matters in the genesis of what comes next. Without the cutting-edge underground electronica scene, music just wouldn't evolve in the same way. That said, the music pans out with gentle radiance that shimmers on neat melodics. A rhythm juts out, quick and snappy beats escalate the track as dreamy sensations drift overhead. The melody fades to reveal a framework of regular yet seemingly chaotic beats that percuss and project in academic formulations.


Homed Rag begins with a shimmer and a ghostly leap of tiny adjusting bells. Beats begin to form like droplets of dew on heavy green grass blades. A rattle of wooden chimes marks a new section, chatterings of non-phonic meandering walk us hand in hand to a spongy meadow. Each step springs on a spinning under-sound that pushes glimmers of hope into the air. How about some Magical Thinking? This track opens as it it had always been on, only now we can hear it properly. Repeating chimes open the number as a drum pounds a gently moving rhythm. Bass forms in a droning patchwork quilt of buoyant rumbling as new percussion enters. Strings then waver in on vines that swing from glade to glade. The album finishes with Angels In The Wires. A mysterious humming song breaks free from the prison of silence as the sound production swaggers into being. A droning harmony swishes around entwined central points as variations of tonal depth and clarity howl against solid and gated walls.


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