Seven Steps Behind [CD]

Daniele Mana's 2017 debut EP for Hyperdub, ‘Creature’, was a taut, evocative suite of beatless, almost neo-classical electronics. We now find his music has caught an alien virus and started hallucinating. On ‘Seven Steps Behind’, the borders between reality and the weird have collapsed, and with each listen through its zigzagging course, you’re rewarded by its strange twists and turns. ‘Seven Steps Behind’ is an electronic album that doesn’t always sound electronic; much of the record has been created to sound like prepared pianos, harpsichords, cellos and flutes. At other times, sampled acoustic instruments and specially recorded sessions have been processed through software and careful editing. It’s this sophisticated layering of contrasting versions of the same sources that help give this record its uncanny balance. The album also plays with the sense of time in its mostly drum-free hall of mirrors, pulling from minimalism, chamber music, dark jazz, and synthesiser experiments.