R Seiliog : Shedhead EP

For a while the myth that musician/producer Robin Edwards (who releases music under the alias R. Seiliog) was born in the basement of a North Wales' clock shop gained ground due to its strong sense of narrative truth - it reified the origins of the interwoven, metronomic recordings he released. It's not a true story, but he did grow up surrounded by music and the five ambient electronic pieces on this EP reflect a lifelong absorption with it.

There's a lot of heritage here in the hinterland of the sound - subdued Krautrock artefacts, elements of trip hop and ghosting memories of The Orb and Aphex Twin can be found - but the samples, electronic beats and synths that compose it are nothing but contemporary (and individual).

Perhaps more than anything else you will have listened to this year, the EP is a collection of dreamlike places that the music takes you to. Absorbing, at times mesmerising, the long, often minimalist but still layered tracks are more meditations than songs; mostly smoother, and less abrasive / percussive than those found on his acclaimed 2014 album In Hz.

You know from the first elegant wash of synth that forms the intro to Myopia, before it finds the beat, that you are listening to something that is magnificent; against its drum machine programming the drifting otherness of the soundscape Hyni in the Hivemind is an elemental, and initially rhythmless, piece and is transfixing in effect.

You don't need any grounding in a genre, or recent comparative context to understand this music - happy standing alone the Shedhead EP is a cohesive, imaginative and remarkably crafted set of electronica.


R. SEILIOG I Cloddio Unterdach (From Shedhead EP)