Bleep

It’s fair to say that Imperial Flood, the sophomore LP from Logos, has been a topic of discussion for a while now. More than half a decade has passed since the producer issued his debut solo full-length (2013’s Cold Mission, out through Keysound), and the intervening years have seen Logos drop several EPs and work extensively with Mumdance. We’ve all been eager to see how his recent developments would translate onto a new full-length.

The answer is - not in the way you might think. Anyone looking for more of the weighty grime-techno hybrids that Logos has got down to a fine art these past few years needs to leave those expectations at the door. Apart from a couple of moments towards the back end of Imperial Flood, this is not a record geared for the club.

What Logos does here is retool his sound so that it now takes in weightless grime, IDM, folk electronics and abstract drum ‘n’ bass. The ghostly rave synths, use of silence and sudden eruptions of rhythm are all weapons we’ve seen Logos deploy before, but rather than serving a soundsystem banger we now find them used to create eerie, cinematic ambiences. Logos cites the likes of J. G. Ballard and Christopher Priest as inspirations, and a similar sense of English eeriness pervades this record. As such, Imperial Flood owes as much to the likes of James Leyland Kirby, The Black Dog and Ghost Box Records as it does to the contemporary British dancefloor.

Imperial Flood is at once a radical diversion from, and a logical progression of, the sound Logos has been honing over the past few years. It is a curious, mystical and haunting record that will stay with you long after the last track is done.