- With its black and white binary code artwork and music that lives on the border of electro and classic IDM, the Sheffield label Central Processing Unit can appear awfully serious. But it's not allergic to fun. This EP from Neil Landstrumm, replete with an oddball title, is an example of CPU's lighter side. The EP is unabashedly retro, highlighting CPU's connection to Sheffield bleep techno, a lineage label founder Chris Smith hinted at earlier this year with painstaking reconstructions of two sought-after bleep tracks.
On A Death, A Mexican And A Mormon, Landstrumm uses B-boy samples, zig-zagging basslines and bleepy melodies. His knack for intense detail never feels too fussy. "Chrome And Ferric" is so topsy-turvy that it feels random, but there's still care in the wiggling textures. "Tomorrow People," an update on a tune Landstrumm released under the name Navario Sauro in 1996, is so packed with ideas that it could be referencing five eras of dance music. The other two tunes, "Sahara" and "The Chemical Con," are less imaginative bleep-inspired exercises. Even so, Landstrumm is a welcome presence on CPU.
TracklistA1 Tomorrow People
A2 Chrome And Ferric
B1 Sahara
B2 The Chemical Con