Bleep

Instra:mental return to the fray with new LP Timelines. In the eight years since their first full-length Resolution 653 the duo have crafted eleven tracks that revive the spirit of the project’s early forays into drum ‘n’ bass.

While many of the cuts here hover at around 170-bpm, Timelines is not exactly a junglist collection. Indeed, there is a washed-out feel to this album that is derived from the space between the beats. Entries like ‘Deep Night’ drift into the ether, their drums contained by stargazing synth pads and the sort of widescreen atmospherics one associates with early Goldie. This sonic blueprint forms the basis for several tracks across the album - ‘Photograph’ and ‘Elsewhere’ are but two further examples of Instra:mental’s paired-back d ‘n’ b style.

Sometimes the way Instra:mental shift their beats around takes their sound to other places, a technique that gives Timelines good variation. ‘Shine’, for instance, shifts the emphasis of the rhythm to create a hip-hop snap, and ‘End Credits’ does something similar. And if Timelines doesn’t exactly let loose at any point, cuts like ‘Sakura’ at least lean into the breakbeats enough to make them dancefloor-friendly.

Instra:mental’s long silence is broken with the drop of their second album Timelines.