Electronic Sound Constructions

On Electronic Sound Constructions, Bristol’s Crescent are reduced to one person – Matt Jones – and the album is suitably claustrophobic, a murky set of dubbed-out instrumentals that play out as though Jones’s eight-track is leeching steam and smoke as he’s recording. On tracks like “Quince Flowers” and “Desert Rose,” extended vocal samples mutter away while Jones builds simple, glazed-over rhythms from drums and bass, fed through delay and spring reverb; some primitive turntablism makes the material sound woozier still, as though it’s stumbling along the lines of tape threaded in the studio. Everything builds to the concluding “Philicorda Loops (Excerpt),” which is just that, a few clashing loops of a simple four-note melody played on the philicorda keyboard. Allowed to unspool slowly, its relentlessness is lulling; imagine a punk-concrete take on Eno’s Discreet Music.