- Tide Of Thorns is the debut release for both Atom Tree and the label Hotgem, and it's a promising start for both. In the twinkling warmth and enveloping, bass-driven tenderness of their sound, Atom Tree wear their influences—Jon Hopkins, Bonobo, Active Child and the like—unashamedly, but their take on them is assured and confident.
"Die For Your Love" is the most Hopkins-like of the tracks. Based on deliberate, sweeping bass and overlaid with sparkling keys, it achieves a beautifully calming, if familiar, effect. Yearning vocals from Fergus Cook of Edinburgh band Discopolis takes the plinking "Desired Effect" into the wide-eyed indie-electronic territory of Active Child, while "Tide Of Thorns" has jagged thrums of xylophone punctuating a rushing bed of high vocal harmonies and slow bass drums. "P.S.," meanwhile, is a dizzyingly pretty earworm, with a high-pitched piano line and xylophone intermingling as a comforting cloak of bass gradually swaddles both.
Tracklist01. Die for Your Love
02. Desired Effect feat. Fergus Cook
03. Tide of Thorns
04. P.S.