Articles
2010 Top 10s and 20s
Will Long (Celer)

Albums
Bilxaboy
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma
Celer & Yui Onodera
Cepia
Dead Leaf Echo
Ferraris & Uggeri
Ernesto Ferreyra
Flying Horseman
The Foreign Exchange
Les Fragments de la Nuit
Ghost and Tape
Andrew Hargreaves
Head Of Wantastiquet
i8u
Anders Ilar
Quintana Jacobsma
Kaiserdisco
Leafcutter John
Clem Leek
The Lickets
The Machine
Magda
My Fun
Ostendorf, Zoubek, Lauzier
Part Timer
Phillips + Hara
RV Paintings
Set In Sand
Shackleton
Shigeto
Matt Shoemaker
Sun City Girls
Supersilent
Swartz
Ben Swire
Collin Thomas
Tomo
Upward Arrows

Compilations / Mixes
Exp. Dance Breaks 36
Fünf
Lee Jones
The Moon Comes Closer
Note of Seconds
Tensnake

EPs
8Bitch
Celer
Jasper TX
Jozif
Lerosa
Machinefabriek
Patscan
Pleq
Simon Scott
SHEMALE
Thorsten Soltau / Weiss
Jace Syntax & BlackJack
Weiss

Cepia: Cepia
Cepia Music

With the simply titled Cepia, Minneapolis-based Huntley Miller returns after a year-three absence with his first Cepia collection since Natura Morta appeared on Ghostly. Perhaps the title is intended to reference how direct and to-the-point Miller's music has become, and certainly not a moment is wasted when not a single one of the recording's ten tracks exceeds the four-minute mark. Despite their brevity, Miller's tracks are marvels of construction, with plenty of detail squeezed into their compact form. Think of it as melodic IDM-tinged electronica grounded by crisp beatwork and refined atmospherics and served up in succinct, three-minute packages.

“Untitled III” inaugurates the album on a bright and effervescent note with jubilant, sing-song melodies and stutter-funk percussive figures. “Ithaca” takes the kind of skittering beat snap and chiming melodics one associates with Autechre but rather than having the parts splinter apart Miller corrals them into a clear-headed song structure one might classify as IDM-funk. “Incurvatus in se” (Latin for “curved inward on oneself ”) finds Miller in a suitably introspective mood, casting his gaze within to find querulous melodies and grainy surges rubbing shoulders with off-kilter beat shuffle. “Me and My Gin” catches one's ears for the loose, jazz-like swing with which Miller underscores the tune's insistent melodic intertwine. One might have expected something exaggerated from a track with a title like “Hype Man,” but it turns out to be a lullaby-like interlude of gossamer, waltz-timed melodic patterns. Softer moments emerge in other places too, including “Public Address,” a grainy, heavily processed ambient soundscape, and “Cord,” which caps the release with fluttering ambient gestures.

The release is available in CD and LP formats, with the latter perhaps the ideal presentation. Hearing the album's ten tracks split five per side recalls the days when vinyl ruled and CDs and digital downloads were options decades removed from realization. Cepia is high-quality stuff for sure; one only hopes that the infrequent appearance of new Cepia material coupled with the album's modest running time won't result in it getting lost in the shuffle. Miller's meticulous handiwork deserves better.

December 2010