Serwed: Serwed IV LP

Flaty & OL’s Serwed return to Huerco S’ West Mineral for their fourth album; straying from their usual bass abstractions into hi-gloss lab experiments with obvious appeal to disciples of Dopplereffekt, Vangelis or the 'Resident Evil'/'Silent Hill' OSTs. 'Serwed IV' mines the vaults for tinny '90s workstation bells and FM pads placed alongside rigorously designed sci-fi drums and textures. The duo take inspiration from commercial background music, from film, documentaries, adverts and installations, re-contextualised with a modern sheen. Album opener ‘Glare’ deploys Blade Runner-esque midi-woodwind and 4th world pads, and ‘Beroca’ takes us straight to Dopplereffekt’s drumless lab, with added blue-skied textures.  'Contrail' is even more stark, with a simulated harp riff that sounds like it was snatched from Kara-Lis Coverdale’s ‘Aftertouches’, bent around trapdoor slams and simmering drones. On 'Smart Home', the duo nod to YMO, using brittle percussion and simulated instruments to capture the mood, enhanced by dub effects and plucked strings like an edit of Laurie Anderson’s peerless ‘Late Show’, visions of ‘Home of The Brave’ flashing before our eyes. On 'Heat Shield', wormy, generative rushes add sparkle to blurry hardcore vocals, ‘Technics’ turns dub techno to wavy plastic and 'Phoneme' pairs vibrating high-end with fudged dub and irregular pulses like some re-factored IDM blueprint. We end with ‘Bloomin’s’ Serotonin rush, all gleaming contours and loved-up energies, the best flashback.