A new release on Bricolage is always going to be worth our attention – the Glasgow based label has been consistently putting out interesting, boundary pushing electronic music for nearly a decade now. This is their sixth release with the Mancunian producer known to his maw as Richard Jones, the last one being 2021’s Migration of the Meaning.
Formations takes the delicacy and inspiration from the natural world that informed the previous albums and builds it into lusher textures, taking the pulse of the nightclub out into verdant forests and trickling streams – making electronic music that feels like something grown from the earth. On the blissed out meditations of ‘Under The Weeping Tree’ or the breathy euphoria of ‘Folp (View From My Hill)’, Jones takes the listener to the wild green places and sun kissed hills.
There’s a real narrative quality in the way this is all assembled, in the way that it flows from those easy peaks into moments of dark nostalgia, into spymovie tension and straight up techno bangers and sweeping string led beatitude.
‘Solitude And The Boy At The Window’ takes that feeling of drawn out ennui of an idle teenage afternoon and fills it with birdsongs and the rustle of static that tug at some long forgotten synapse and resolve into a comforting crinkle.
The droney pulse of ‘Radio Drops’ hints at a build into drum and bass that is swept away in the tides of ever building chordal strings – it’s a beautifully personal piece of storytelling that takes the listener along in its wake.
The quality of the production here really marks this out as special, the ghost in the machine of making something synthetic sound so beautifully organic, the thoughtful touches of dynamics that take this from being an accomplished piece of music into something grand and expansive and ambitious.
Formations is out now via Bricolage. Available on Bandcamp here.
