Fuewa - Birth Palace EP Preview [SRR005] by Sonic Router

Fuewa - Birth Palace
[SRR005]

After the boom of pitch perfect, cleaner than clean house-music-with-heavy-bass deflated and subsided, fuzz and decay are two tools that seem to have crept into a lot of producer’s arsenals more and more. And whilst it’s important to acknowledge the fact that emphasizing rough textures isn’t really something new - it’s a concept that artists whose work has endlessly influenced the direction of our record label have built careers out of - it’s definitely an approach that’s had an impact on the musical output of Chris Sallows.

Working as Microburst, he’s released music on Svetlana Industries and Cleaning Tapes, but through accepting and developing his output to incorporate more distorted elements, he emerged out of his Dorset studio with a fully-fledged new artist project: Fuewa. Birth Palace, is the first official outing under his new moniker and across the 6 tracks he explores the reams of potential he found amongst a sound palette of blown out kick drums and jagged pads.

“This sound has slowly been creeping into my Microburst productions for a while now and I felt the need for separation before it got out of hand,” Sallows offers on the genesis of the project. “Fuewa is a channel for the rougher, murkier side of things - something less concerned with cleanliness and more about texture, feeling and sound.”

Opening with the sprawling ‘Bhlok’, Sallows paints a bruised and unpredictable world where his own peculiar impression of slow-mo house is powered by drone and fractions of course percussion. ‘La Void’, ‘Undress_Invert’ and ‘Time Piece’ are very much the melodic centrepieces of an EP that captures and balances his newfound sense of ruggedness perfectly.

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Out 1st July 2013 on metallic red cassette & digital.
Pre-order the cassette here: http://sonicrouter.bandcamp.com/album/birth-palace

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All music by C. Sallows.
Mastered by Concrete Cut Studios.
Artwork by Patrick Savile.

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FEEDBACK:

"particularly lovely" - The WIRE
"a thoroughly good listen." - Braiden // NTS
"the opening track is gorgeous." - Cian Ó Cíobháin // AnTaobhTuathail/RTE
"droning house with the warmth and sad beauty of Border Community buried six feet deep in fuzz." - DUMMY
"it's really good." - Rob Booth // Electronic Explorations
"I'm currently enjoying 'Time Paint'" - Mickey Pearce // Swamp81
"particularly feeling the last track..." - Bake // ALL CAPS
"heavily distorted rhythms and woozy textures" - The Quietus
"I can hear the work of a genuinely original producer in the making." - Untold // Hemlock
"a proper paranoiac pumper" - Ralph LTF // WIFEY
"it has an underlying soul which is jumping out at me." - James Barrie // Audio Texture
"I love the sounds" - Randomer // Hemlock
"Beautiful stuff" - Dave O'Donnell // BBC 6Music
"Great sound design and crunch on these tracks. I like!" - Al Tourettes/Second Storey
"It really kind of grows on you" - Rita Maia // Resonance FM
"Really fucking good. Love the general crustiness of the whole EP" - Spam Chop // Wigflex
"gorgeous business" - Lotide // Astro:Dynamics
"really stirring stuff" - Truants
"Handsome gear" - Public Information
"Another splendid addition to the SR stable." - West Norwood Cassette Library