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Beginner's Guide to Drum'n'Bass Vol. II

Albums
John Luther Adams
Monty Adkins
Celer
Eric Chenaux
Sarah Davachi
A. Die & Lorenzo Montana
Dikeman / Serries
DinahBird
Ricardo Donoso
Elian
Emika
Terence Fixmer
Hotel Neon
Islands Of Light
Fernando Lagreca
Lake People
K. Leimer
Daniel Lentz
Rudresh Mahanthappa
Tesla Manaf
Metcalf, Roach & Thomas
David Michael / Slavek Kwi
James Murray
Áine O'Dwyer
Fabio Orsi
Matana Roberts
Nadia Shpachenko
simakDialog
Subtle Lip Can
Robert Scott Thompson
Christian Wallumrød
Woven Entity
Yagull
Yodok III

Compilations / Mixes
Joseph Capriati
Nina Kraviz

EPs / Cassettes / DVDs / Mini-Albums / Singles
Anduin
CTRLS
Dexta
Digital, D. Phiz., Response
Igorrr & Ruby My Dear
Rima Kato
Klute
Mako, Villem & Mcleod
Seba
Second Moon Of Winter
Manfred Waffender

Subtle Lip Can: Reflective Drime
Drip Audio

Someone picking up Reflective Drime without having previously heard Subtle Lip Can might make certain inferences based on the cover details. Seeing that the group consists of Joshua Zubot (violin and mandolin), Bernard Falaise (guitar), and Isaiah Ceccarelli (drums/percussion), one might conceivably picture a trad-jazz trio riffing on tunes by Stéphane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt or some such thing. In like manner, track titles such as “Shuffle Stomp,” “Slam Hum,” and “Chackle Clast” could lead one to think the album might feature blues-based romps, be-bop, and concise solo statements by the string players supported by high-energy drum swing.

Well, all such expectations are certifiably dashed by the fifty-two-minute recording, which pursues an entirely other agenda from the one described above. Subtle Lip Can, which formed in 2007 and issued its eponymous debut album three years later, is no Hot Club of France, in other words. Laid down in 2013, Reflective Drime sees Zubot, Falaise, and Ceccarelli digging into ten improv-styled tracks with a hydra-headed unanimity of purpose.

The recording's uncompromisingly experimental tone is established early, with raw swathes of violin and guitar dragging themselves across a lumbering percussive carcass during “Siffer Shump.” Though comparatively more subdued, “Gull Plump Fiver” is no less alien in its overall comportment, though Falaise's playing does surprisingly flirt with jazz-styled melodicism in its textural shadings. In one seeming nod to conventionality, “Shuffle Stomp” includes wiry solos by Falaise and Zubot, albeit ones constantly besieged by the immolating undertow churning alongside. Elsewhere, crabby, atonal guitar shards butt up against glockenspiel tinklings and nocturnal violin scrapes in “Salk Hovered,” while “Chackle Clast” resembles some woozy convergence of spidery guitar picking and convulsive violin micro-textures.

February 2015