TradeCraft - The Body Needs Purpose (2024)

Absolutely killer darkside mutations from Tradecraft, aka Carrier, a stunning hour-long session of dank, highly atmospheric technoid alchemy that plays from the Pan Sonic/Vainio/T++/Actress songbook.

Key technoid shapeshifter Guy Brewer chases a trio of aces under his Carrier alias with the murky arrival of his Tradecraft project, forging heaving downtempo slugs and vapours from a signature palette of iridescent electronics deployed somewhere along the line between Actress, Burial and Mika Vainio, on a cybergoth bent.

After leaving us reeling with those Carrier releases that held up among the best of 2023, Brewer tends to more sensual atmospheric concerns on this latest pearl for the Berceuse Heroique tape series, following aces from Vladimir Ivkovic, Jed Bindeman’s Concentric Circles and Pessimist’s Boreal Massif with what essentially amounts to an album of new work. Over the course of an hour he folds bare components into a dozen compelling shapes, oozing and pulsing with a tense energy that references all those aforementioned heroes, but also that late 90’s groundswell of projects that operated around Berlin’s Hardwax/Basic Channel axis - most obviously Torsten Pröfrock’s Din label.

It also recalls the shadowiest niches of Brewer’s work as Alexander Lewis for Blackest Ever Black, but toned with a poised, slow-paced nuance that defines his most recent work, patently plotted out with an instrumental storytelling scheme that benefits from end-to-end encryption and absorption. However, For a shortcut to highlights we direct you to the reticulated tresillo rhythm and liminal midnight drone of ‘1009’, the inclement conditions of shearing, widescreen industrial air and gothic romance on ‘Not Even’, and the woofer-troubling subs on ‘Black Mist’.

Another bullet from one of the most reliable labels around, by one of experimental techno’s most brilliantly elusive spirits.