Makeness - Loud Patterns LP

It's the contrasts that stand out in Makeness' (aka Kyle Molleson) music. Crafting tracks which make a virtue of disparate influences, Kyle manages to pull off something difficult: making tirelessly-crafted songs which sound loose-limbed and to-the-point.

His debut album, Loud Patterns, is the fullest example of this yet. On the one hand, it's noticeably indebted to house and techno; there are 4/4 rhythms, and a no-nonsense directness which nods to the likes of Omar-S and Theo Parrish. On the other hand, those dance floor structures are a vehicle for a wider spectrum of sounds. Channeling avant-garde experimentalism and an outsider's interest in pop, he embraces the distance between those two poles.

The music on the album manages to deftly flit between his different interests. Coarse, discordant squeels repeatedly pierce the opening title track, softened by the chorus' sweetly-sung vocals. Elsewhere, 'Who Am I To Follow Love' sketches a goofy-pop aesthetic - with wobbly synth-notes and clattering percussion - as backdrop for endearing vocal harmonies. And in 'Rough Moss', there’s a proper, face-melting club banger. With driving, non-stop drums and a squirming bassline, it's the bedrock for cacophonies of noise: distorted, strummed guitar chords, laser-beam synths and blasts of hiss.

The album is set to come via Secretly Canadian, a longstanding giant of independent music. Their genre-spanning output is the perfect home for Kyle's difficult-to-define approach.