New Leeds-based label, Crying Outcast, launches with Miles J. Paralysis’ 4-track EP, Folktronic. From the record’s title I was expecting some Ultramarine-esque electro-acoustic IDM. However, reading the press one-sheet it became clear that the “folk” being tapped into here is more that of horror flicks, like The Wicker Man. The use of the adjectives “unsettling” and “occult”, and the line “something “other” lurks just beneath the surface” were the giveaway. That and, of course, the music. 

The 3 original numbers are all actually pretty raw analogue jack. Hypnotic, repetitive, techno-toned grooves. Minimal, percussive pieces, with no frills or fat, that don’t feel the need to stoop to obvious hooks. All also possess a sense of industrial ritual. Bear the influence of the obsidian sonic sigils hammered out by the likes of Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia and O Yuki Conjugate. Treated, twisted, metallic percussion echoes and rattles. The kick and bottom end are colossal. B-lines bowing and flexing like bent, bending bands of warped steel. The only vocals are sinister and spectral. Like the shouts of a shaman caught / trapped between worlds. 

Always Liked Scarecrows starts with a spoken sample, celebrating a creepy village festival, and then evolves into fidgeting modern bleep. Its propulsive pounding accompanied by a persistent Woodpecker-like clicking, and odd Art Of Noise bionic barber shop snippets. The mid-tempo’d Eavesdropper spies on a confession that seems sexual, but its words are blurred so as to be indecipherable. Dark and sleazy, it’s pitch black, glory hole gear. Still Waiting is a tribal, prog-house production, with a muted, masked melody. 

A remix from Going Good’s Brian Morrison and Mysticisms’ Piers Harrison takes this last track in a more “disco’s revenge” direction. Picking up from their live dub of Ghost Assembly’s I Miss Your Love, the pair eccentrically EQ the beat, and mix in party handclaps. Enthusiastically, intuitively breaking things down, and building them up, with dropouts and controlled delay explosions. They also add strings, which sound as if they’ve been stolen from somewhere cinematic. Since there’s something grainy, grimy, “Depth Charge” about them, I’m guessing the source was a cult kung-fu movie or more fittingly a video nasty. 

Miles J. Paralysis’ Folktronic can be ordered directly from Crying Outcast.