Rare Earth Technology

David Harrow's new album Rare Earth Technology is out tomorrow, nine tracks that are experimental and explorative by nature but accessible and open too, rattling with ideas and the possibilities of sound. Throughout Rare Earth Technology there are bleeps, thuds, echoes, twangs and whooshes on top of the slo- mo rhythms and bounce of dub.  Opener Noiseword is a ten minute ride of synths, noises, waves, chatter, melodies, pattering drums and percussion. At six minutes it picks up the pace, the birdsong and tropical noises suddenly pulled into focus by the kick drum. Canyon Sound is rocking, slow mo dub. Third track Concrete And Water is somewhere between the two, dub and experimental sound design playing off against each other, a melodica heard faintly over percussive clunks. Forwards Backwards, all echoes and reverberations, picks up a chuggy rhythm, more dub space and sounds bouncing around. A guitar line surfaces in the middle and then vanishes again as the drums pull back to the fore. Ghostwalking is in a similar place, abstract rhythmic dub. The sounds on Ikiga seem to come from somewhere near the Fourth World music of Jon Hassell and Brian Eno, primitive urban electronics. On Illusion Control the tempo is cut in half, the drum machine joined by blasts of air, crashes and then a synthline, futuristic and filmic. Rare Earth Technology is here to buy/ listen, available from tomorrow.  

David's musical background is deep. He was a mainstay in On U Sound, wrote and recorded with Anne Clark and Jah Wobble in the 80s, released as Technova in the 90s, wrote and produced with both Andrew Weatherall and Billie Ray Martin in the 90s, and has had a subsequent musical life in Los Angeles as James Hardway and in more recent years making ambient/ acid/ experimental modular synth music infused with dub. Earlier this year David released Jitter, a two track acid house EP on Mighty Force and Full Circle, a seven track celebration of Roland synths, chuggy, deep, acid house electro. On his birthday at the end of June David played the album live in Tokyo. The title track is lovely, six minutes of shuffly, squelchy fun.