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Sophia Loizou - Singulacra

Kathexis

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Absolutely captivating second album of post rave soundscapes and head mangling sound design from one of Bristol’s most underrated producers - Sophia Louizou.


Debuting last year on Astro:Dynamics with the Chrysalis album, she has refined her sound even further, the brutal and distorted constructs that made up the first album have developed into breathtaking widescreen soundscapes.

Right from the start, Singulacra is subtly laced with hardcore and jungle references, ‘Divine Interference’ is built from dreamy pads and percolating atmospherics that shroud a hardcore vocal sample, setting the tone for the album - far from being a throwback to hardcore golden days, it takes the very best elements, reece basses, cascading amens and glassy chord progressions and reinterprets them in the most satisfying of ways, challenging whilst being strangely familiar and comforting.

Hints of Moving Shadow sit alongside what could be fragments of a Metalheadz or Renegade Hardware DAT tape, freewheeling breaks struggling to pierce through the sinister washes of atmospherics and gently skewed synth lines, perhaps best captured in ‘Order Of Elements’ which makes subtle reference to Origin Unknown’s ‘Valley Of The Shadows’. Burying that crystalline appreciated sequence and slowly revealing it over the course of 4 minutes flips it into a wholly different head space, absolutely guaranteed to give you goosebumps just as the BBC documentary vocal sample drifts out of the speakers.

The flip side of the disc explores more neo-classical compositions that you might associate with some of the Subtext camps artists but still remaining faithful to the A side’s source material and referencing her first album’s trajectory.

A blow by blow run through of the album would only do this record a massive injustice, the best way to absorb Singulacra is in a dimly lit room with your full concentration given over to the record player.

We can only describe this one as a masterpiece, a good few artists have mined the rich seams of the Hardcore continuum for source material but, in our opinion, none have come even close to this - Sophia Louizou is on top of her game.

This comes with our highest recommendation.

Divine Interference



Order Of Elements



Artificial Infinite



Genesis 92 - The Awakening