Bleep

French duo Kaumwald debut on Stephen Bishop’s excellent Opal Tapes imprint with a blinding EP of tape scuzz and beats. ‘Lethe’ crawls at a sinister pace, with understated ticking high hats and a subdued kick giving space for bursts of improvised scree and throbbing sub-bass attacks. ‘Stix’ takes the template to a more abrasive extreme, with walls of noise being punctuated by sidechain kicks. Elsewhere sharper IDM textures cut through the fuzz, with ‘Fetemes’ moving from a glitch lopsided pulse into noisier washes, ‘La Prote Profail’ making use of piercing bell-like synths in its mid-range, and ‘Size a 105n’ treating samples of French speech in a manner that recalls an Alva Noto and Anne-James Chaton collaboration chewed up and spat out.