Comit: Remote Viewing
ASIP

It's been more than a decade since Merck (2000-07) shut its label doors, but any listener yearning for more of its particular brand of IDM should find much to like about Remote Viewing. Though the album title nods in City Centre Offices' direction, this first full-length album under the Comit name by James Clements (aka ASC) more recalls the halcyon days when music by Proem, Proswell, Ilkae, Deru, Lackluster, and the like was emerging from Merck's Miami warehouse. Professing an abiding affection for classic IDM and labels such as Morr Music, Hobby Industries, and, of course, Merck, Clements couples his skills in beatwork with ambient production on the new project.

His first Comit outing surfaced in 2016 as a limited seven-inch on the Short Trips label and reaches its fullest realization to date with this eight-track full-length, which ASIP (A Strangely Isolated Place) has issued as a double-LP gatefold-sleeve set (in a gorgeous transparent orange pressing) and download. Crucial to the Comit sound is the bottom end, in which thudding bass pulses and muscular kick drums provide a solid underpinning for a swoonworthy array of vaporous washes and delicate analog synth figures. Clements largely downplays narrative development in these setpieces, preferring instead to emphasize texture, atmosphere, mood, and sound design. The productions, all weighing in between four to six minutes, induce a nostalgic ache for earlier times; in that regard, it's hardly accidental he chose titles such as “Reverie” and “Soft Focus” for the tracks.

“Flutter” makes good on its title with a punchy, nimble-footed funk groove Clements ornaments with sparkling keys, whereas “Clouded Over” brings a glitchy swing to the album whilst staying true to the template. His command of sound design is never more evident than during “Meadows,” a soothing IDM serenade that effectively conjures the image of natural landforms stretching out as far as the eye can see. His beat skills, on the other hand, receive a solid workout on “Soliloquy,” its muscular swing showing no small amount of drum'n'bass in its DNA and the tune itself not unlike the kind of thing Luke Vibert included on his Wagon Christ set Tally Ho!.

September 2019