- Konx-om-Pax is a graphic designer with a well-established signature style: fluid digital landscapes strewn with shapes and objects so colourful they evoke a feeling somewhere between euphoria and mild anxiety. Though his visual output for labels such as Brainfeeder, LuckyMe and R&S is instantly recognisable, his music has not yet attained the same distinctive quality.
One thing that stood out about his debut album, last year's Regional Surrealism, was the contrast between the eye-popping sensory overload of his design work and the frosty, muted atmosphere of the record itself. Taken as a whole, Selective Recall doesn't seem like an attempt to bridge that gap, though it is, in certain places, much more playful.
Take "Discount House." It's hard to say whether the title is a bit of self-deprecation or a piss-take of lo-fi 4/4 records. In any case, it's one of the album's most enjoyable tracks. Made of little more than a few 8-bit chiptune notes, a gummy Casio bassline and a cowbell galloping slightly behind the rest of the beat, it's as groovy as it is economical. Even the record's more experimental passages are laced with humour. "Paisley Centre" is a collage of field recordings, presumably sourced from the Scottish shopping centre it's named after—you can hear babies crying, café chatter, and an automated intercom announcement, accompanied by a plangent piano loop and a muffled, mournful horn.
Scholefield says Selective Recall is more of a mixtape than an album, and so to some extent it can be forgiven for not being as coherent a record as Regional Surrealism. Still, it suffers a bit for its unevenness. After opening with "Beach in Arran," a dewy set of bleeps in the vein of Aphex Twin's more understated work, much of the first half of the album simply drifts by. In isolation, softer songs such as "Melted" and "Out of Sync" are fine, but strung together with the soporific "Bang Zylophone" and the ambient string sections of "Hint," they only serve to stretch out an already sluggish opening 20 minutes.
The album improves as it goes on. "Grim Stuff" and "Double Dip" are bouncy breakbeat tracks that give the second half more momentum. Selective Recall is at its most thrillingly abrasive in "Appleade," but it's the closing track, "Anticipate," that shows Scholefield at his best, melding his vivid melodic sensibilities with the shades of menace often present in his visual work. Selective Recall may not be a great album, but it shows its creator's impressive breadth of ideas, and presents a promising signal of what's to come—that is, once he's made up his mind on where he's headed.
Tracklist01. Beach in Arran
02. Melted
03. Out of Sync
04. Bang Zylophone
05. Hint
06. Annamae
07. Paisley Centre
08. Forestry Report
09. Organ Inst
10. Jump Move
11. Grim Stuff
12. Double Dip
13. 2001
14. Appleade
15. Faunauto
16. Discount House
17. Anticipate