Residuum, by Shane Latimer, is an extraordinary record. You may think you have heard every sampled electronic bump, tap, scratch and groan there is to be heard, but think again.
This is primarily an album that plays with feelings and sensations, and as such, one likely to catch you off guard. Like Dr Frankenstein, Latimer’s inner devilment is often at play with his creations – assemblages like the creepy ‘Uninorm, Uniform, Unicorn’ or the itchy, uncomfortable scrabbling of ‘Clickbait’, the result, doubtless, of far too many hours looking at sound displays on multiple screens and queasy recollections of a bad night’s sleep.
‘Ebb’ is a brilliant opener, ant-like and insistent, and increasingly three dimensional in its structure as it plods through its allotted time. It also possesses a brilliantly abrasive ending. The core playfulness on show reminds me of the classic opener ‘Material’ on Moebius and Plank’s Rastakrautpasta. The follow up, ‘Cheap Shades’ could not be more of a contrast: it idly passes you by. The sparse plucks, scrapes, ticks and strums of the guitar samples hover around like flies, almost touching you as they create an uneasy atmosphere. The sound of ‘Cheap Shades’ is akin to the sweat-laden torpor one experiences during a hot fusty afternoon where everything around you seems to radiate with unwanted attention. The suggestion of car horns and road drills has you looking for the nearest shady bar.
Some pieces don’t stick around for that long. ‘Molecular Approach’ needs one minute and twenty-four seconds to make its point. Given the title reflects its restless nature, I would wager we are listening to a tribute to those pesky protons and neutrons trying to hit it off with one another, quicktime. The manic scattering of taps, bumps and thumps are not too dissimilar to a Han Bennink drum solo.
A key track is ‘Ten Minutes in the Tumble Dryer’; a filmic number that initially arranges a series of string scrapes to invoke the kind of hurried gasps and pants that someone quickly walking along a country path would emit. The sampled clicks and squeaks and backwards-spooled tapes that accompany the walker could be the wildlife peeking out of the branches. It is a very eerie track that does have something primaeval and “Cold War One” about it. A modern take on Kraftwerk’s ‘Mitternacht’, maybe? The two ghostly, drawn-out notes that call to each other as the track draws to a close sound like a warning: someone’s lost in the fog. The scrapes now increase in tempo, suggesting someone blindly running through a landscape.
‘Press Here to Capture the Memory’ is another imposing piece. It starts as a pattern of muffled thumps that settle down into a kind of heartbeat. We soon realise it’s the needle of a record endlessly bumping against the run-out groove, like a rowing boat banging against its moorings. Pressure builds and the slightly jarring buzz of an electric current initially acts as a very slow moving melody. The (vinyl?) crackles that suddenly appear add a new urgency, though it’s never clear where things will end up. We do know things will happen. And they do, courtesy of an increasingly enervating collection of scratches and half-captured samples. Suddenly the grey, abrasive noise stops, throwing us off balance. The simple nature of this track, using the bare minimum of elements to build up an emotional pressure is a real act of strength from Latimer. We are here to concentrate, not idly tick off these effects as pleasing or cool.
‘High and Mighty’ is a great closer, and one that feels the most traditionally avant-garde of the tracks – a low maintenance take on Metal Machine Music that revels in a mid-tone sanding of our ears, and now and again gives us a glimpse of some kind of elegy just out of sight. Of course, it stops before we get to experience it.
Residuum has been carefully assembled, like a stamp collection that has been judiciously added to over time. But it is nevertheless a free sounding record, its freedom coming from the soundness of its underlying construction. Nothing feels throwaway or there for effect. And the listener can easily concoct a mind’s eye vignette for each of these pieces. Quite why Latimer’s record often had me thinking of M R James stories such as ‘The Mezzotint’ is anyone’s guess. Unnerving and excellent.
