(Incienso)
Brian Leeds, AKA Huerco S, keeps raising the temperature on his once-chilly ambient on an ambitious record full of delightful detail and ASMR-inducing sound design
The sun barely seemed to rise in the earlier work of US electronic producer Brian Leeds. As Huerco S he put out the audio equivalent of 5pm November gloaming: lo-fi, low-lumen ambient and house music, flickering as if through a thicket of pine. But the light sharpened on his 2022 album Plonk, and for his project Loidis – on 2024 album One Day and this year’s stunning remix of James K’s Peel – the temperature seemed to rise along with the tempos. It wasn’t quite Balearic summer, but certainly Baltic spring or Adriatic autumn.
His new album is his grandest statement across either project: 111 minutes of music across six sides of vinyl, a scale he goes a long way towards justifying. In tracks reminiscent of the microhouse sound of early 00s acts such as Luomo, the synth chords have Leeds’ trademark degraded shimmer, paired with ticklish snares and delightful ASMR-inducing sound design, stereo effects panning from right to left with quicksilver physicality. It’s hugely pleasurable to let your mind zoom in and out of these arrangements, marvelling at the microscopic detail then appreciating the overarching sense of groove, further enhanced by big melodic motifs: the playful echoing notes in TT Stunt, or the Afrobeat bassline of Running Rich. A couple of tracks in the second half lack the adventure elsewhere, but at least 90 of the minutes here are riveting, psychedelic even on nothing stronger than a cup of tea.
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