Cherry Garcia - High Priest

  • Share
  • When you consider the solo work of RüF Dug and Jon Tye, their partnership as Cherry Garcia feels promising. Perhaps best known as the founder of Lo Recordings and half of the prolific outfit Seahawks, Tye has previosly turned his hand—often with others—to drum & bass, krautrock, ambient and new wave. His reach as an A&R extends further still, having made room for the likes of Fischerspooner, Luke Vibert and pop-rock quintet The Chap on his 21-year-old label. Two albums by RüF Dug, released within the last two years, sum up the Manchester-based producer's range. Island recast RüF Dug's house as a secluded idyll, a sweetly unrefined body of happy Casio melodies. The ambient abstractions of Treatment 32 were more complex and misshapen. Released on cassette by vaporwave label Dream Catalogue, that EP was a deep dive into muffled body rhythms, dungeon echoes, gravity-crushed techno and sludgy new age. Cherry Garcia's High Priest arranges some of those fragments into peculiar mosaics, resulting in a sound between cosmic disco and Balearic. The oceanic soundscapes that Tye favours survive in the gull squalls of "I Am The Circle" and "Mystic Mountain"'s generous reverb, while Island's clarity and Treatment 32's smudges blend to give High Priest its mutable contours. Many of the record's best moments highlight these strong contrasts. Distorted guitars bleach "Kill Your Speed"'s disco drums into stonewashed prog rock, while pedal-drenched guitar and gagaku drums pass through "Alma De Fogo." Sometimes the focus wanders. "Alma De Fogo" is percussive Japanese music one minute, '80s guitar ballad the next, a faded LuckyMe banger after that. It's possible to appreciate that fluidity at face value, but each section is swept along too quickly by an impatient current. But High Priest's digressions are a price worth paying for such imaginative collages.
  • Tracklist
      A1 I Am The Circle A2 Kill Your Speed B1 Alma De Fogo B2 Mystic Mountain
RA