Don't worry. Just because an album is seven versions of the same track doesn't mean it's boring. There's more difference flying around on Pedro's new release, Fear and Resilience, than in the entire back catalogue of a fair few higher-charting artists. The idea of a theme and variations has been around since Bach, and Johann Sebastian did them all on his own. Here, an array of productions great and good nip into the kitchen and whip up a little something with one of last year's tastiest slices of folktronica. Fear and Resilience takes a standout track from Pedro's LP, an album of electronic, melodic hip-hoppery, and does the hokey-cokey with it. The original "Fear and Resilience" skips happily through the sort of vales and hills you associate with Kieran Hebden and DJ Shadow: beat-laden, lyrical, inky-tinged. Woven samples overlay bristling beats, with acoustic guitar, occasionally replaced by the brass section. Pedro is London-based James Rutledge, who released his first EP in 1999. He's managed to bring together the serried ranks of electronica and underground hip-hop to do their thing with his track. First up is Prefuse 73, Atlantan digi-whiz Scott Herren, noted for the hard edges and fast cuts of avant-garde hip-hop album Vocal Studies and Uprock Narratives. Here he doesn't disappoint, with a disjointedly funky reprisal of the original track. Despite a constant fracturing and re-splinting of the breakbeat, he doesn't lose the almost pastoral melodic edge of the original. Second in line is Cherrystones, leftfield hip-hop producer Gareth Goddard. His background playing bass in Cardiff garage bands may have surged to the surface, as this funky as hell (and in my opinion best on the album) track is all about the satisfyingly dark bass line. It's dense, with an obese beat, twangy guitars and a dash of discord. It's for driving through a post-apocalyptic city in a beat-up Dodge to, occasionally stopping at the lights and worrying if wild-haired irradiated survivors bearing baseball bats are going to run screaming from the shadows and club you insensible. But in a good way. Fear and resilience, see? Next is the moment's Mr. Popular, Danger Mouse, providing a reserved but perfectly formed minimalist mix. The layered sampling is highly Shadow reminiscent – no bad thing – with scraped sounds, swept harps and a melody that almost passes for ethereal until the heavier booted beat kicks in. Four Tet's climactic 21-minute main course showcases the creator of Pause and Rounds at his most free-form. It's not so much a tune as an experiment. This is a highly ambient studio remix, for thinking rather than dancing to. It takes at least four minutes of soft scrapes and bleeps before even the most disjointed of beats makes a tentative entrance. Jazzy saxes and snares canter across the stage. A crazed animal scratches at the door and there's a Hammer horror deluge of strings. Clock-ticking beats float through an underwater ambience. Unfocused? Undoubtedly. Pretentious? Probably. Without value? Unlikely. It's not a track for every day, but it's a wander through someone else's thought process, and one where you really get to stretch your legs. - New Noise
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1XEP/Out Of Print