- Intentionally or not, Rob Clouth is part of a new wave of IDM—which is basically the Traum Schallplatten sound melted down and reformed, or drill & bass if it were made of more malleable stuff. Bundles of digital percussion expand, contract and sputter over mournful melodies, following in the footsteps of producers like Max Cooper and Jon Hopkins. The Barcelona resident started out making dubstep-informed material as Vaetxh, but has since moved to more approachable material under his own name, having released two EPs on Leisure System so far. Hidden Structures, Clouth's third, is the most ambitious and sprawling yet, but sometimes gets lost in its own splattered frenzy.
Hidden Structures is an apt title, as it doesn't feel like there's a whole lot keeping it in order. To figure out where his dense rhythms begin and end, Clouth's music requires you to step back and take a look at the big picture. On opener "The Smallest Measurable Space," the beats come together almost imperceptibly, forming out of abstract noises. There are a few fleeting eureka moments like that: the bright church organ tones at the beginning of "Cracks In The Firmament," the hard-panned percussion in "Thin Shell, Inner Void" and the way closing highlight "Galaxy Collapsed Into A Point" melts down the esoteric scaffolding into something ambient and digestible.
The rest of Hidden Structures could use more of that. Clouth seems intent on packing as much detail as possible into his lengthy tracks, so what could be affecting chord progressions are overrun by inscrutable drum programming. Clouth has obvious talent, and he wields it like a prog-rock keyboardist. Sure, he can do some crazy shit, but maintaining the listener's interest requires more.
Tracklist01. The Smallest Measurable Space
02. Cracks in the Firmament
03. Thin Shell, Inner Void
04. The Galaxy Collapsed Into A Point