Leftfield Recommendations August 2010

Review: 1 Inch/ 1/2 Mile, the debut album from Grasscut, demonstrates nicely Ninjatune's steadfast refusal to compromise on its sonic principles as it appproaches it's 20th Anniversary. Grasscut's music is formed from stockpiled field recordings and recycled 78s and snatches of illicit conversations recorded on mobile phones edited and reworked into the tapestry of their musical compositions. The outcome is a bewitching combination of twisting psychedelia, stuttering clicks and cuts, ambient soundscapes and downbeat pop which sucks you in as soon as the woozy haze of kaleidoscopic noise explodes on 'High Down'. It's on haunting compositions such as '1946' and 'The Tin Man' where Grasscut truly shine. The latter provides the album high light with the sampled squeak of the Pompidou centre providing a spectral melody upon which layers of piano and strings gently play out before the sound of Count John McCormack's unique voice signals an onset of crashing percussion.