Since Josh Abrahams’ ARIA-nominated career pinnacle “Addicted To Bass” went platinum in 1999, the once prominent member of the Melbourne underground dance community has spent most of his time happily operating as background agent.
For the last few years he’s been amusing himself with production and co-writing duties on various notable records as well as taking on white collar sound engineering work.
But in his spare time he’s been combating this mundanity by exploring the unstable world of intelligent dance music.
Boards Of Canada’s Music Has The Right To Children is turning fifteen this year and although they didn’t exactly invent IDM they did more to highlight its possibilities than almost any other act.
On The Swim Abrahams crafts his own take on their heavily emulated formula and he does a pretty great job. The five tracks are a complex array of orchestral flourishes, electronic tidbits and warm piano chords that disintegrate around shattered vocals samples and passages of tropical lullaby guitar. It’s busy, restless and sporadic, but expertly arranged.
The main detractor from The Swim is its runtime. The brevity of the record means the really interesting stuff present here isn’t given the opportunity to coagulate into a meaningful whole, making the record feel more like an experiment than a definitive statement.
Still, it’s a great first step into this world and if he ever decides to flesh it out over a long play format the results could be really special.
