helm - impossible symmetry (album preview)

*Excerpts from the album. Now available at Experimedia.net.* Like an unheard Wolf Eyes off-shoot or an early piece by Seasons (Pre-Din), Luke Younger fills his third full-length as Helm with tortured, claustrophobic drifts of sound that seethe with malevolence. It's still as exploratory and raw as most Pan releases, but with a decidedly darker bent that is built upon creeping electronic textures and ghostly acoustic fragments. A wide array of material is presented, however, as "Impossible Symmetry" veers from buzzing, unidentifiable clang ("Miniatures") to bubbling synth drones ("Stained Glass Electric") and high-pitched sine waves ("Above All and Beyond"). Younger may be better known for his work with Steve Warwick as Birds of Delay, but the practiced and jarring atmospheres of "Impossible Symmetry" will leave a lasting impression one way or another. - Ryan Potts, Experimedia

---Impossible Symmetry is the third full length record by Helm, the project of London-based artist Luke Younger. It marks a new chapter in the artists' canon as it's his first to be informed by live performance rather than studio experimentation. The recording and engineering was primarily a solo venture, with some technical assistance from John Hannon on a few tracks. Most of the compositions were created out of ideas/improvisations that were conceived in a live context and then fed back into the studio work. The album was recorded over the duration of a year in London with source material culled from acoustic sound sources in a similar methodology to his previous album, Cryptography, while also simultaneously incorporating more extensive use of electronic elements and moments of rhythmic dark ambience recalling the outputs from early Coil and Cabaret Voltaire to even Traversable Wormhole's industrial minimalism. His last LP, Cryptography, presented a five-part suite of expertly rendered electro-acoustic study which uses processed piano, Casio MT-40, cymbal and broken guitar strings. Younger creates a world where these instruments morph into spectral rust, a shimmering klang swims alongside passive noise and the relationship between acoustic and electronic derived sounds forms a solid foundation. This sound is steered through a mélange of fringe territories: glacial drone meditations, reconfigured gamelan clusters, and howling walls of organized feedback, all coalesced in a post-industrial fashion with a commitment to homemade exploratory zeal. For the past ten years, Younger has also performed extensively in Europe and the U.S. with Steven Warwick as pioneering avant-drone duo Birds Of Delay. The LP was mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, pressed on 140 gram vinyl and comes in a poly-lined inner sleeve. It is packaged in a pro-press color jacket which itself is housed in a silkscreened PVC sleeve with photos by Traianos Pakioufakis and artwork by Kathryn Politis and Bill Kouligas.