Glider

Album Review

The work of an anonymous Seattle-based producer with an evident affinity for the outer realms of shoegaze and somber ambient techno, Glider would have been an equally easy fit on Kranky, like label staple Loscil, or an idealized version of 4AD that has maintained the line running through the darker and spacier aspects of their early catalog. Alternately, this is just as likely to evoke the absorbing gray moods present throughout the Cure's Faith and Seventeen Seconds as thaw-out techno like Yagya's The Rhythm of Snow or Markus Guenter's In Moll. Though heavily processed, caressingly foreboding guitars are a major component of the Sight Below sound, the root is Wolfgang Voigt's Gas releases — whether or not a muffled thump is present, rhythm is paramount. Lesser producers would ride out these tracks for eight or nine minutes, rather than the six-minute average here; this producer keeps things tight and ever-developing, never straying into formlessness.