Premiere: General Ludd – Hypnopompic

Music

Written by Annie Parker

Polyrhythmic percussion taken from the Glasgow duo’s debut solo LP on Hong Kong-based imprint 宀 or ‘Mihn’.

The trees taunted the wind, swaying sarcastically as it did everything in its power to dismantle them. Their underbellies exposed, the leaves stood erect and looked like little tongues sticking out.

This is a battle they’d fought many times before and today it came right on cue. This time they would lose a few troops but their roots would maintain solid so as to prove their endurance. Now, each branch is a trophy.

‘Hypopompic’ is taken from General Ludd’s third release on a Hong Kong label. The eponymously titled album comes four years after their last solo release on Rub A Dub records and continues the duo’s focus on razor-sharp sound design and textural complexity. With an otherworldly remix from Shanghai’s Laughing Ears, the album leaves little time for respite with 9 hard-hitting tracks exploring the abstraction of rhythm and genre.

The track takes its rhythm from the rattle of two complex drum patterns which compete from either side of surface level: one sharper and more tangible and the other submerged in water, doused in reverb. Delivering themselves at full force in a competitive yet playful exchange, their dialogue makes for incredible complexity and dynamism and is an irresistible tease of what to expect of the full release early next month.