- Acre's recent EPs—notably his contribution to Cold earlier this year—have jettisoned much of the grime leanings of his earlier work in favor of icy techno experimentalism. The three tracks here specialize in sharp-elbowed percussion rendered in challenging rhythm patterns. Try dancing to them and you may end up tying yourself in knots.
On the lurching stop/start "Symbols," Acre lays down a distorted kick so heavy it threatens to fall through the floor. He splices it with an isolated breakbeat that's been set adrift to float about on its own while an eerie analogue hum makes regular visits. Perhaps there's something in the Manchester air, as it shares a similar snarling minimalism to that of Acre's fellow denizens Akkord. There's a similar aesthetic at work on the jerking "O." Shafts of light fall across the track in the shape of 8-bit trills and an elastic bassline—although, along with its predecessor, it acts as a mere appetiser for the closing "Retrograde Loops." As pleasingly unconventional as the opening two cuts are, it's here, where Acre drops the convulsive rhythms for a low-slung bump and coruscating bursts of noise, that you feel his future lies.
TracklistA1 Symbols
B1 O
B2 Retrograde Loops pt. 2