- As iconic husband-and-wife design team Charles and Ray Eames once wrote: "The details are not the details; they make the product." Or, to use another adage, it's the little things that count. London-based Aggborough has been making little things count over the last year or so with his focus on the finer elements of electronic music. Strange vocal samples and a stranger array of field recordings are some of the tools in his kit, which so far has produced two OTB records and a split with fellow Londoner Ashworth on his newly minted No Real Value label.
Where No Real Value is a precise and tangible extension of Aggborough's ideology—each release is a sonic consideration of a specific time, event or location; in the case of Slag Heap, an old slate mine in Wales—his OTB records have adopted more random formations. But whether dealing with a Bukowski truism spoken over a steely house beat, or some dreamy dub confession, Aggborough's endearing dance floor rhetoric has continued to impress.
Heygate maintains both OTB's and Aggborough's standards. "In A Sieve" transforms lines from a nonsensical limerick by Edward Lear into a dark, creeping jaunt. Then "Traces," all spiky and metallic, begins like another tough house number, before it slowly mellows and softens. "Heygate" concludes the EP in a tangle of melancholic melodies and big bassy kicks. It smacks of transitioning from late night to early morning; it's warm and gentle, unfurling with subtle elegance, but there's enough force behind it to keep you going when you should be on your way home.
TracklistA1 In A Sieve
B1 Traces
B2 Heygate