- Forest Drive West put out their first record last year, but it's hard to believe they're actually a new act. Nothing is known about the project beyond that name and their home city (London), but their complex rhythms and tactile sound design reflect an impressively advanced talent. EPs for Livity Sound and Dnuos Ytivil applied these skills to angular, house-tempo club sounds. Jungle Crack, a 12-inch from last year on Rupture London, presented four cuts of jungle too inspired to be called "revival." Persistence Of Memory delivers a bit of both for another rhythmically innovative label: Felix K's Hidden Hawaii.
Like the best artists pushing the boundaries of club rhythms, Forest Drive West makes the 4/4 chug feel like a wasted opportunity. In these tracks, the grooves are not the foundation but the main show, their novel, interlocking structures an absorbing performance in themselves. The A-side holds two beat workouts that evolve slowly, the first aqueous and soothing, the second hard-hitting and tense. Both are compatible with techno but are too rhythmically nimble to neatly fit that term. The B-side is a soaring jungle tear-out, but it's not such a departure from the other tracks. It has the same kinetic energy, the same wintry atmosphere and the same dazzlingly complex composition, just a good 40 BPM faster.
TracklistA1 Persistence Of Memory 1
A2 Persistence Of Memory 2
B1 Persistence Of Memory 3