26.05.17

Peverelist is arguably the lynchpin of Bristol’s electronic music scene. As a mentor who has inspired others, over the years he’s almost acted like a centrifuge, fostering a vibrant and creative community of producers. While managing the city’s essential record shop Rooted (which closed in 2010 and was succeeded by Idle Hands) he established the Punch Drunk label, and then in 2011, Livity Sound, a label and growing collaborative project.

This is Peverelist’s third album, continuing on his trajectory from a sound that featured on his 2009 debut LP Jarvik Mindstate, that could loosely be called dubstep, into the Livity Sound phase more easily described as techno. Tessellations is full of the depth and power that he’s sustained throughout his discography, and continues to merge rhythmic zones with an awesome focus. Deep, low shapes built out of sub bass; sparse digital melodies that flicker and twinkle; a lifelong junglist’s instinct for agile rhythmic play – these things stay constant even as change flows. Still Early begins with snare-skipping rhythm techno that could be from 1992, before evolving with more tricks – a ghetto-tech bass bounce and big, clattering drum showers.

Some cuts, like Slice of Life, are rhythmically sleek and straightforward. But in Sheer Chance Matters, tumbling on a jumble of low-end beats, and Wireframes‘ clamouring clusters of drums that surge like teeming bacteria, there’s a mad intricacy, without losing the groove – hardly simple to achieve.

Pev’s ability to cohesively melt his influences down into a perfect idea of modern techno is unquestionable. Though there are sharp, shattering textures here, the receptive, hypnotised brain absorbs it into the body as a whole, becoming meditative, hallucinogenic, spiritual even. I’m juxtaposing the language of science and of mysticism, but that’s just what Peverelist does.

Gwyn Thomas de Chroustchoff