Time & Space is the new album from Nottingham's Shrinkwrap, out now on Notts label Delia Recordings. It's a thirteen track double album and almost all the tracks are over five minutes long. It's an album that demands your full attention, not an album for cherry picking or flicking through or for those with short attention spans (and doesn't that affect us all at times these days- a short attention span seems to be a symptom of modern life). Time & Space is an album to get lost in, to surrender to, to give oneself up to. There's no sense in rushing it. You need to let the music work its magic in its own time.
The first four tracks take in a beautiful marimba led opener (Vibra Marimba), layered and sonically rich Balearica (Call Me When You Get There), the languid and soulful Beautiful Thing, and then a short neo- classical piece called People Passing Through You. The hum of electricity and the dreamy haze of FX are everywhere, tying the tracks together. Shrinkwrap mention Cocteau Twins, Talk Talk, Massive Attack, The KLF and Ryuichi Sakamoto as influences and all of those feel on the money.
Time & Space drifts into dubby areas and into more uptempo ones. On 54 Blues Pt 1, drums and energy kick in. The follow up, 54 Blues Pt. 2, flips it, downtempo, Bristolian blues. Throughout, there are both live instruments by a variety of guest musicians and the Shrinkwrap duo's samples, synths and machines, a blurring that makes for an organic and alive sound.
As it moves towards the final four songs Time & Space wanders into ambient territory. Calm Your Mind takes a vocal sample, 'Let your mind wander... calm your mind', and wraps it in rain forest sounds, double bass, pedal steel guitar and fluttering synths. The title track jolts us with a synth wobble and electronic drums. Blind Side is journey into ambient techno and they finish with Acoustic, a track built around an acoustic guitar and FX, a trip into sound and feeling.
There's so much going on on Time & Space hat you need several sittings, ideally some with headphones, to let it reveal itself fully. Mark Raynor and Matt Horobin have poured several decades of listening to music and making music into it, a head music album that is rich and rewarding in lots of ways.
You can find Time & Space in various formats at Bandcamp.
