Ramda

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Mice Parade is the solo project of the Dylan Group's Adam Pierce, and as with the DG recordings, 'Ramda' cleverly walks a tightrope between post-rock and ambient electronica, rarely requiring a safety net to negotiate the thorny issue of 'live playing vs. sampled & sequenced'. Right from the off, you'll be struck by this unique hybrid. 'Ramda Flies with Magic Eyes' is somehow reminiscent of blissed-out house, yet played by steel drum, tabla, and the Penguin Café Orchestra. 'Distant' emerges as a jauntier version of Chick Corea's 'Children's Songs', from which drifts the third track, 'Galileo', propelled on a torrent of flamenco-esque acoustic guitar, and what sounds like harp, or plucked violin strings. A very pretty motif indeed, which is delicately smeared into a flat noise, increasing in intensity until a release of two overlapping rhythm patterns conjures a tornado of plucked strings and percussion. Uplifting, beautiful and original. If all this is the work of one man, it's a real achievement - there's a vast range of acoustic instrumentation across the sound, and some weirdly compelling 'Beach-Boys-past-their-bedtime' close-harmony singing(!). Basslines drift between post-rock and dub with consummate ease. Percussion is beautifully constructed. Again, as with the Dylan Group and cohort Nobukazu Takemura, Steve Reich would seem to be a major influence, in both the circular minimalist patterns and the choice of melodic percussion (vibes, marimba etc.). The record's a bit scattershot - the light touch evidenced in Dylan Group recordings becomes a little over-egged on "The Lonely Lounge Piano Player's Lost In His Little World" - a kinda "The Piano Has Been Drinking" which is amusing at first, but may increasingly suffer the skip control. As with God Speed You Black Emperor, many of the tracks take the form of a loose structure built through picked minimalist loops, before drums lift the whole construction up into the air. Also, all the instruments are played live, recorded into mics, but mimic the sound of sampler/sequencer-produced music. Quite how a one-man band does this I don't know, but as a result, the record sounds fresh and live, though with real freedom of movement. The guitar remains resolutely loose throughout, drifting across the beats. Despite drawing from well-known sources (minimalism, post-rock, electronica, dub), 'Ramda' emerges with an original, rather lovely sound, and one that's ultimately difficult to pin down. And that's to Adam Pierce's immense credit.