Bleep

Rian Treanor’s time spent alongside the Nyege Nyege crew in Uganda may have been the most important stretch of his creative life. 2020’s File Under UK Metaplasm LP proved to be a critical and fan smash, applying the tools of his native UK with a healthy dose of the East African musical tradition, the end result resembled something like garage and techno, but warped into exhilarating new shapes all the same. However the story does not end there. Seeking even more collaboration, Treanor also hooked up with Acholi fiddle player Ocen James for another LP’s worth of genre-defying music entitled Saccades. Billed as a true showcase for both musicians’ singular practices, the end result is a shockingly cohesive spectacle that stands among the strongest work in either of their oeuvres.

Perched somewhere between digitalism and natural improvisation, Saccades approximates the give and take of a live show via electronic treatment of acoustic instruments and sophisticated processing of digital ones. Between James’ rigi rigi (a single string violin) and Treanor’s modified cybernetic a'dungu (arched harp), the duo uncannily venture even further into the intercontinental divide established with File Under UK Metaplasm. Some tracks, like the opener ‘Bunga Bule’ and ‘The Dead Centre’ lean more towards natural instrumentation with a slightly metallic sheen, while others like ‘Tiyo Ki’ achieve a symbiosis that thrillingly extends beyond human capability. Saccades’ middle section is where Treanor and James really crack things open. The microtones on ‘Memory Pressure’ point to any number of Eastern music adjacent ambient music, but there’s something slightly unsettling (and enticing) about its loped cadence, while the following ‘Naassaccade’ sounds strikingly like club music with all the rhythmic heft suctioned out until a grandfather clock’s worth of oscillating chimes disrupts the calm. Breath-taking music from an improbably fertile period.