Reviews 384: Slow Riffs
The first Slow Riffs cassette from Ian Wyatt/Local Artist was released on Mood Hut way back in 2013. And though Wyatt and the label revisited the project for 2015’s ‘Gong Bath’ 12”, it has been a long stretch of silence since. So it was super exciting to see him bring back Slow Riffs for this year’s ‘Simulacra’ long player, and while the music still retains the same mystical focus and continues to aim for astral enhancement, the sonic scope has expanded considerably, resulting in a dynamic, imaginative, and richly textured experience of future-ambient sound structuring and post-new age exploration.
Slow Riffs - Simulacra (Mood Hut, 2025) In opener “Vertical Horizon,” hand drums, skittering whisps, repeating breaths, and rhythmic textures of deep house are re-layered into pulsing downtempo exotica while “Cosmic Joke” follows with choral voices and dream synth incantations flowing on mysterious wavefronts of oceanic sound. “Talking Drum” features ritual rhythms from the primordial forest, blooms of sub-earthen bass, and fourth world melodic majesties, and the hypnagogic sequencing and seascape startrails of idiophonic iridescence in “Her Shining Abode” are accented with gemstone key layers, percussive pops, and crystalline chime cascades. And to end side A, “Sleep Weel” swaths mallet motions in a mystical haze of reverb, with shakers inducing a further shamanic flow.
The title track starts side B with pearlescent pads and psychosonic oscillations underlying new age pianos, saxophonic warmth, and an ambient island bongo groove. The synthscapes of “Skywatchers” emit a cold arctic glow while symphonic and cinematic orchestrations are overlaid by periodic flows of abstract static. Next comes “Mutual Dream,” where dub chords billow out over aqueous melodic textures, psychedelic flows of soloing synthesis, and deep bass rhythms that induce a state of chillout bliss. Then in closer “Lascaux Caves,” haunted rhythmic fx and ghostly voices under morphing delay and muted brass are anchored by pulses of percussion landing like a whisper…all while telephonic tracers squiggle and squirm and mirage chords pan like refracting light.
(images from my personal copy)
