On their 7th album, Andy Diagram (trumpet) and Richard Harrison (drums/percussion) took their unique sound to even greater sonic extremes. Based on live trumpet loops, drums, and assorted electronics, the Spaceheads reside in their own musical realm; not quite jazz, not quite electronica, and not quite rock, but deftly hovering somewhere between the three.
Low Pressure hangs on lazy grooves and thick harmonized trumpet chords, sleazy deep beat bass and crushed-up metallic drumbeats. Spaceheads mix the raw emotional sound of breath with the banging of wood on skin, pushing both through the blips, crackle and distortion of pixilated electronic noise.
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Thematically, Low Pressure is about impending danger, the coming storm. We live in uneasy times, in a world with invisible enemies. Environmental destruction is no longer just a dangerous possibility but is happening now. Our weather systems have been turned upside down.
Science and technology’s potential to liberate us grows greater by the day, contrasting more and more with its use to manipulate and control us. Can new technologies save us? Or is it a case of old technologies offering us all a hope for the future? The trumpet and the drum are ancient sound machines, herein battling their way through electronic webs. The hot-wired, super-charged, electro-panic of modern living.
Low Pressure was Spaceheads second LP on Merge, and their first in more than 3 years, following up 1999’s Angel Station. It was also released in Europe on the Bip Hop Label.
Manchester – City Life
Magnet USA Sept 02  |
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Here is a video for the fourth track on the album – Astro Temple
