- Founded by Ame's Kristian Beyer, Muting the Noise is a new, vinyl-only label, started as a way to release the work of P. Eladan, an artist identified only as a former Guru Guru cohort. These two tracks, apparently recent in vintage, are compelling enough no matter what the backstory. Each is based upon the same rippling drum-machine sequence, with muted hand-drum samples run through tight dub delay; every few bars, a twist of the knob either sends the beat in a ping-ponging free-fall or ratchets it tightly back to zero, like a tetherball snapping its way to the top of the pole. That linear groove is paired with a lumbering disco beat and fleshed out with modular birdcalls, shakers, bells and eventually organs, with a kind of retro-futurist vibe that explodes primitivist circle drumming into High German maximalism.
The tracks are curiously paced, tapping along at a cautious 110 BPM, but driven forward by relentless 16th-note patterns and leapfrogging delay chains. The A-side is the more expansive of the two, with its massing pipes and jaunty bass melody; the B-side strips down to nervous percussion and synthetic birdsong. Somewhere between Four Tet, Konono No. 1 and Harmonious Thelonius, it's a fantastic debut from out of nowhere, a riot of psychedelic dub disco that's stripped down enough to fit into a variety of contexts. Here's hoping for more from the mysterious P. Eladan.
Tracklist A Monochordium I
B Monochordium II