- "Sorry for yet another alias," Brian Leeds, AKA Huerco S., said of his latest record. This is his second of the year, following an ambient LP as Pendant. Loidis is the ancient celtic name for the city of Leeds, which tells us two things. One, that it's still the same old Huerco S. on the buttons. Two, that these tracks are old. Specifically, they were made between 2014 and 2016, the period when Leeds was re-orientating himself following his debut album, Colonial Patterns. The two records from this period are some of his best, experimenting with hypnotic, dubbed-out minimalism. The ratio of dance momentum to dreamy drift in A Parade, In The Place I Sit, The Floating World (& All Its Pleasures) falls somewhere between, and it's excellent.
Leeds calls these tracks microhouse, and they share the style's needlepoint sounds and extended looping plateaux (two of them fade out, as if they could roll on forever). But their gorgeous fuzzy sound quality and their beatific mood make them inimitably Huerco. The easiest gratification comes first. "A Parade"'s skipping groove is reined it at seven minutes, with the occasional chord swell lifting the mood from chill to euphoric.
The rest of the record sprawls. "In The Place I Sit" lingers in kick drum-less bliss for the first five minutes, and when a four-on-the-foor thud enters it barely disturbs the rich sheets of cottony atmosphere. "The Floating World (& All Its Pleasures)," meanwhile, runs to a hypnotic 15 minutes of bouncing chords and tick-tock hi-hats. Not much happens outside of the lead-line, which flickers and shifts furtively as if Leeds is running through presets on his synth. The effect is casually gorgeous. Whatever reason Leeds had for not releasing this stuff when he made it, we're lucky to have it now.
TracklistA1 A Parade
A2 In The Place I Sit
B1 The Floating World (& All Its Pleasures)