Villain Carmen – Memoria (Clear Vinyl)

There is a lineage that can be traced to Rhythm & Sound, clicks-and-cuts, Pharoah Sanders, Jon Hassell, Actress and Ricardo Villalobos – though often as abstract qualities: small sounds become big while big ones recede into fine-grained rhythm. Minimalism is key to hearing the details: crackling electronics, inhalation, and sighs reverberate within vast spaces and on a foundation of rhythm. This restraint highlights Villain’s tendency to surgically separate sounds and their ghostly sound-memory doppelgängers according to frequencies. Paradoxically, every artifact, as a memory’s approximation, can be heard with utmost precision.

For Villain, memory in sound appears to sit comfortably behind the mixing console of a dub lab, expertly and unpredictably controlling volumes, textures, filters and all other parameters, known and unknown, in an ever-mutating recall.