Review: Equimus - S/T

Equimus is a collage book of sorts. A plethora of different sounds are ungracefully torn out and stuck down into different patterns; disjointed in terms of the texture contrasts that are thrust spontaneously together and yet possessive of a soft fluidity that gushes through the album’s micro-detailed rhythmic patterns. There are jagged edges and seams everywhere – misplaced sighs, blips and glitches, missed beats – yet it is this, paradoxically, which gifts the album its mercurial and organic movement, riddled with the imperfection which brings life’s natural tendency for error into the frame.

It’s a melodic record, with flecks of randomisation dotted around some deceptively simple melody lines: “Little Red Riding Hood” trundles forward on a bleepy bass motif and a more gritty swell of synthesiser chord that wafts in like a helicopter blade, while “Ministry Of Truth” builds on a two-note pizzicato loop that feels as though it might have been ripped away from a 90s euro-trance track. Through all of the inflections of instrument and found sound that decorate the album’s surface, there’s a sense of “pop” instilled at the core of Equimus; a will to romanticise and dance, albeit in a stream of awkward one-liners and off-rhythm body movements.