Seefeel
Succour

THE REVIEW

In the 1990s, glitch, trip hop, IDM, and drum and bass emerged. These genres were fundamental for the development of later electronic music. Eno's ambient was expanded, filled with effects, rhythm changes, counterpoints, and ethereal atmospheres. Aphex Twin, Autechre, Dj Shadow, Black Dog, and Squarepusher are just a few of the names. Seefeel are the crystalline trills of Sarah Peacock, guitarist Justin Fletcher, and bassist Daren Seymour. After an exciting start with the EP "More Like Space", with the title track, for example, showing an interesting mix of noise, dub, and post-rock, they moved on to their second work "Quique". It's 1993, and the album is a wonderful container of sounds and sensations.

Are you familiar with "Hex" by Bark Psychosis? That crepuscular ambient, steeped in melancholy, mist, and celestial sounds, is metabolized into an electronic "pastiche". The sound's stasis, the rhythm overpowering the voice, with the latter sketching parts like a real instrument, and the hypnosis of tribal rhythms are the hallmarks of "Polyfusion," "Charlotte's Mouth," and "Plainsong". The setup is not that of a DJ but that of a band, like Cocteau or My Bloody Valentine.

After excellent press feedback, we arrive in 1994 with "Succour", and the concept shifts towards a clearer and more linear trip hop. They remain faithful to hypnotic rhythms and a nerve-wracking staticity, which slowly gets lost in swirling crescendos, but the rhythmic base is more delineated. There are numerous episodes of calm, such as the dark drone of "Meol", the sound fragments in "Rupt", and the sublime vocalizations of the solemn "Ruby-Ha".

The jolt in our waking dream is given by the assault of "Vex" and "Fracture". These are the only two episodes where we see the trio encountering gloomy techno bursts. More martial is "Vex", which could easily fit in "Chiastic Slide" by Autechre, while more measured is "Fracture", which echoes the complexity of "Quique".

After this work, the band got lost in projects and mini-projects and we had to wait until 2011 to see them reunited and eager to produce the excellent self-titled album.