Peder Mannerfelt - The 3D Printed Songbook

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  • There was a moment a couple of years back when you could barely move without stumbling over a vivid, adventurous new Peder Mannerfelt record. As he told Mark Smith, this fertile period came about after a rethinking of his production method: he shed "mental baggage" and learned not to sweat the details. The Swedish artist's output has since slowed, but the sounds and techniques hashed out back then still underpin what he does. The 3D Printed Songbook is full of asymmetric synth loops, unsettling drones and spicy technoid drums, fashioned into stark, intuitive arrangements that veer between punk attitude and capital-E experimental. This stuff is almost a genre unto itself at this point, and Mannerfelt's latest EP works as a neat primer. At the dance floor end of things, "It's Coming" is a convulsive techno banger with shades of breakcore mania. The broken beat swagger of "Patient Boy" demonstrates Mannerfelt's affinity with his recent collaborator Hodge. Elsewhere the EP turns tender. "First Day" is a hot-headed combo of twitching drum patterns and synth snarl bathed in cooling deep house chords. The soak gets deeper on "You Had," where similar velvet chords toll over a vague ambient swirl. But Mannerfelt can't keep this up, and the track briefly shows its fangs near the end. The darker mode has tended to be more his thing, which he indulges on the doom-techno trudge "Texas Is The Reason" and on "Against The Wall," a charcoal-black interlude painted in broad but effective brushstrokes.
  • Tracklist
      A1 First Day A2 It's Coming A3 You Had B1 Texas Is The Reason B2 Against The Wall B3 Patient Boy
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