Mast Year

Recorded over the course of a few months of parental leave, Mast Year uses a combination of electric and acoustic guitars, synthesisers, drum machines and baby toys to create a sequence of tracks spanning woozy Boards of Canada-esque guitar lines, Stetsonian dronescapes and Drukqs-era Aphex. ‘Gnostic notions’ takes inspiration from the micro-sampling techniques used by Björk in Vespertine, generating skittering rhythms from a toy rattle and pairing them with a mournful synth, while ‘Tarantism’ recalls Aphex Twin, its prepared guitar samples colliding with squelchy bass over the course of a few minutes. The final three songs of Mast Year nod towards the emotional post-rock crescendos of bands like the Appleseed Cast, albeit refracted through a fuzzy lens of drone influences like Brighde Chaimbeul. Mast Year was arranged using the Polyend Tracker +.z