Cleared, Breaking Day (side A)

The most surprising thing about 2012's Breaking Day is how much its personality reminds me of Holger Hiller.  He's hardly an obvious influence to reference, so I have no idea if it's on purpose.  The compositions here generally rest on a foundation of a looped drum beat—the sounds have a distinctive metallic quality that seems to come from a cheap looper pedal.  The patterns are plodding, vaguely heavy, and simple rhythmically.  Some tracks have a low-frequency drum wildly exaggerated in the loop.  Over top of these patterns are often a field of textural sounds that makes for an engaging foreground.  Sometimes there is a distorted, rock-like guitar riff that replaces the textures with a simple, vaguely melodic pattern.  For me, the textural concepts feel far more distinctive than the distorted guitar melody.  Apart from the weird metallic sheen on the drums, everything here sounds a bit compressed, the high frequencies can be slightly brittle, and the midrange frequencies are a bit scooped.  The photos on both the cover and the inner fold are particularly beautiful, and the super-thick cardboard used for the gatefold is impressively glossy on both sides.