- Dalhous's beguiling 2013 album An Ambassador For Laing saw them filter Blackest Ever Black's desolate tendencies through surprisingly sprightly beats and bright textures. Scottish duo Marc Dall and Alex Ander (music by the former, engineering by the latter) follow it up with an EP that also grapples with melodrama, although this time it's gloomier. Their lush synth textures are a few tints darker and their songwriting is a whole lot tighter.
Dalhous sound like they've got a better grip than ever on their equipment. "Active Discovering" layers swirling synths until it turns from balmy to ominous. "Information Is Forever" dresses up a funeral march with Pink Floyd-esque synth runs before letting itself descend into pure distortion. "Sight Of Hirta" is the real pick of the litter, however—going back to Laing's beat-driven style, it has the kind of machine gun rhythm you'd expect from some tech-noise act, but elegiac synth melodies temper some of the chaos. In the aftermath, "A Change Of Attitude" closes the first side, depleted and fatigued in "Hirta"'s stormy wake.
Regis remixes the album track "He Was Human And Belonged With Humans," hearkening back to the earliest Blackest Ever Black releases with a slab of yawning techno. Slowing it down to a drip feed, Regis lays bare the desperation hidden in the original, as horns bleat into the wide echo chamber á la David Bowie's "Warszawa."
TracklistA1 Active Discovering
A2 Information Is Forever
A3 Sight Of Hirta
A4 A Change Of Attitude
B He Was Human And Belonged With Humans (Regis Version)