DFRNT: Patience
Echodub

Issued in a digital format on his own Echodub label, Alex Cowles's latest DFRNT effort, Patience, plunges the listener immediately into an ambient-dub soundworld with its opening piece “Sunrise.” A serpentine synth melody lends the setting a rather prog-like flavour, but the ten-track, hour-long collection largely orients itself around heavily atmospheric dub-techno more than anything else—something that becomes clear when a reverberant series of dubby washes introduces the second piece, “Synasthesia.”

Its Plastikman-styled title notwithstanding, “Concept 01” is an exercise in ocean-view languor with a laid-back drum pulse the primary soothing element. Not everything is so serene, however: dark clouds sweep across “Boreal,” whose brooding chords imbue the material with an unsettling degree of drama and portent. The album's longest piece, the eleven-minute “Mountain,” suggests the successful completion of a daunting, step-by-step ascent, but Patience is at its most engrossing when it's at its rhythm-heaviest, such as during “Moon” and “Plains,” which Cowles powers with snappy dub-techno pulses that wouldn't sound out of place in the club.

The differences between the tracks aside, the one thing common to all is a multi-dimensional production design that turns each piece into an ultra-immersive listening experience. As representative examples, “Concept 01” evokes a tropical setting so convincingly, one almost starts to feel the warmth and humidity of the locale, while “Boreal” conjures the image of a setting so drenched in rain one considers seeking shelter in anticipation of the coming storm.

November 2013