Switching For a Living
Cignol
Alphabet Set Records.
SCQ Rating: 73%
Around this time last year, SCQ was blindsided by Red Box Recorder’s Colour Codes, a multi-layered genre-hop on all of electronica’s best-kept headphone secrets. The month of August must have some zodiac-inspired significance for anonymous-and-Irish beat-makers, then, because Cignol presents a clear showcase of talent on the crafty Switching For a Living.
As restless as Colour Codes but adhering to a more nuanced flow, Switching For a Living runs the gamut over its eleven tracks, delving into cinematic acid-house (‘Horizons’), pastoral beat-weaving (on the Boards of Canada-inspired ‘Sitruk’), and organic-infused chill-out (‘Tumnal’). As capably as Cignol can evoke airy loops and ear-pleasing stutters, his forte inarguably remains mixing these elements into acid concoctions. Borrowing from Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works famous playbook, ‘Role Player’ and ‘Nite Garden’ thrive by imbedding migrant atmospheres over some hard-hat noodling. The quality is remarkably consistent, if rarely thrilling, but what Cignol seems to edit from this album is a palpable sense of personality. At eleven tracks and forty-five minutes in length, Switching For a Living is well-sequenced and perfectly consumable as textbook acid-house. Without any idiosyncrasies or surprises to speak of, however, Cignol’s work seems destined to remain a pleasant discovery in a static genre.
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