10-20 [Highpoint Lowlife]

Original writen for the Sonic Router, but this is so good I had to post twice ;)

You know when something comes out of the blue from a brand new unheard name and it makes your jaw drop? Well this is what happened when I put on 10-20 who is a young producer from Devon just dropping his debut self-titled album for Highpoint Lowlife.

This is a deep one full of hypnotic soundscapes made of electronic glitches and what sounds like a mass re-wiring of a super computer channelling fragments of hip-hop, ambient electronica, a wide array of dance music from either end of the spectrum and even a hint of krautrock’s pulse. 10-20 melts all of this and more into one solid flowing album that is quite hard to pin down.

The organic glitches of opening track, ‘Milvus’ has a chiming chilly vibe to it like a walk in the snow near a distant industrial site. It sounds cold; crunchy yet also has an endearing warmth to it. This robo-esq theme runs through the album, its like 10-20 has been making a tiny mechanical army and recorded the whole process. I think this army are built for good mind, as there is a sublime ambiance to the whole project.

The madly titled, ‘Wdrtrhjvelgrad’ sounds like the ghost of 2-step pirate radio being picked up over the top of a old skool electro beat and layers of ambient loops. These different section fade in and out and create something that’s both jarring and kind of beautiful. This melts into the truly wonderful, ‘InB’ which echoes the smooth chords of ambiance found in Aphex Twin or even the looped out brilliance of GAS, maybe ‘Arcadeagle’ is a better example of that. ‘sA’ has some serious crackle glazed dub sensibilities.

10-20 has made a dark and brooding album that flows like a winding river through industrial landscapes.

Download: 10-20 - Arcadeagle

Buy: 10-20