Dedicate Function
Martin Eden
Lefse Records.
SCQ Rating: 77%
Martin Eden is
almost certainly someone’s birth name, but not the artist responsible for
Dedicate Function. As an alias for Matthew Cooper, the ambient-romancing brain
behind Eluvium, Martin Eden allows what any good disguise should afford:
freedom to indulge in things typically suppressed. In Cooper’s – I’m sorry,
Eden’s – case, these indulgences include pummeled beats that loop around
introspective but tuneful vapours.
Its percussive
momentum sprints a few miles clear of any tempo one might discern from Cooper’s past catalog but Martin Eden’s handiwork doesn’t completely abandon Eluvium
territory. Let’s not forget that Cooper already branched away from traditional
ambient music with 2010’s Similes, which incorporated his vocals and lyrics,
and what bridged that gap – his attention to texture – works wonders again on
Dedicate Function. “Verions”, with its tenderly warped synth and an overlapping
swarm of horns at its centre, perfectly demonstrates how Cooper can render
samples and instruments somehow lived-in. The pulse in “Etc Etc”, for example,
creates rhythm out of a complex echo process that resembles the sound of
fireworks ricocheting off of city buildings, whereas “Return Life” gathers its
beat from some faint but gurgling found-sounds in (and likely from) nature.
An experimental
reprieve from Eluvium’s somber musings, Dedicate Function could’ve easily
assumed the expectations of a middle-of-the-road techno record. The melodies
and rhythms aren’t especially unique, nor do they try to propel
their compositions down surprising paths. But not unlike Aphex Twin, Martin Eden’s ambition lies in
the microscopic, and his wealth of textural know-how deepens the hypnotic
ambience behind these armchair-techno tunes to the point where the whole
project’s swallowed whole. It's an engaging descent.
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