Album of the Week: Luke Abbott, ‘Holkham Drones’

Album of the Week: Luke Abbott, ‘Holkham Drones’

27 August, 2010 | 6.56AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Videos: album of the week, border community, luke abbott

Hallelujah: Luke Abbott‘s debut album is finally here.

Part of my relief is strictly selfish: the record’s arrival means that I get to cross two much-salivated-after tracks off my want list—’Soft Attacks’ and ‘Holkham Drones’, which appeared on James Holden’s recent ‘DJ Kicks’ mix and XLR8R podcast, respectively.

I’m also relieved that Border Community seems finally to be picking up steam again, after a year of all too sporadic releases. The album, also called ‘Holkham Drones’, marks a triumphant return for the label, picking up where Abbott’s ‘Whitebox Stereo’ EP left off last fall, and working similar ideas into an even dreamier shape that’s perfect for home listening.

I’ve been curious about Abbott since discovering his ‘Honeycomb’ EP on Amazing Sounds last fall. Its glassy melodies, chalky drums and psychedelic squeal fell somewhere between Holden and Oni Ayhun, and in the context of Holden’s mixes—alongside the likes of Caribou, Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet), and Walls—Abbott’s tracks fit perfectly with the woozy, wrong-footed aesthetic, suggesting a fertile new field for exploration that had nothing to do with by-the-numbers tech house.

‘Holkham Drones’ doesn’t disappoint. If anything, I’m relieved that there are fewer of the 8-bit sounds that have peppered his work since back in his days on Output Recordings. Whatever he’s using—and I’m guessing it’s analog and modular—Abbott achieves an unusually rich, slippery sound, with bell tones and white noise and warbly sine tones chirping away like a radioactive music box. It’s an unusually colorful sound, sparkling with bold harmonies and bright overtones.

Rhythmically, the album is a breath of fresh air, pushing beyond your typical boom-tick time signatures. Both ‘2nd 5th Heavy’ and ‘Swansong’ amble along in 6/8 time, and the title track rolls out wobbly triplets atop a steady 4/4 pulse. 

And when he’s not experimenting with rhythm, Abbott is often trying out different tempos: the sci-fi ballad ‘Sirens for the Colour’ plods along at a cool 110 or so BPM, and the closing ‘Untitled’ drops to a slow-motion 100 for the record’s blissful ambient finale. The heavily swung ‘Brazil’, one of the album’s standouts, clocks either 80 or 160 BPM, depending upon how you count the downbeats.

If you’re looking for tracks to play out, try ‘Whitebox’, ‘Trans Forest Alignment’, and ‘Hello Tazelaar’, all of which encapsulate that good old Border Community pink-sky feeling.

The audio clips don’t really do the record justice: you need to hear Abbott’s music at full fidelity and full length to really get it. It’s a profoundly immersive record, and just dipping a toe in isn’t going to tell you much beyond the temperature of the water. But once you swim in this stuff, you’ll be amazed at all the life beneath the surface.

Luke Abbott, ‘Holkham Drones’ [Border Community]

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