Tarquin Manek - s/t

Pivotal Oz-scene producer/player Tarquin Manek invokes a "unique synthesis of time-dilating folk-jazz romanticism, brittle chamber dub and plasmic post-techno electronics" on his debut album proper, for Blackest Ever Black. It's far from his 1st dalliance with the label; the last decade saw him manifest multiple forms in the seance-like F Ingers trio with Sam Karmel and Carla Del Forno, the latter of whom also appeared alongside Tarquin as Tarcar, while he was also recently spotted on BEB's I Can't Give You The Life You Want LP. To complete the picture, Tarquin was involved with that Kallista Kult killer for A Colourful Storm and co-produced 'YL Hooi's' Untitled debut album - one of the best things we've heard these last few years. Those projects are all very worthy of your time but if yr a newb we reckon Tarquin Magnet should be your first port of call - It's a dusty snook behind his mental curtains, treading between the creakiest, liminal boards to dowse for queer and curdled tones, chalky timbres and mildewed dub space. The pealing clarinet and haptic rustles of album opener Sassafras Gesundheit unfurls over 13 minutes of spiralling chamber music that slowly morphs into psychoactive folk drones and lacquer-bubbling textures, before spinning left with more abstract, curious, reflective results in the Fortunes Past and Fortunes Begun. The title and vibe of Perfect Scorn casts a side-eye over ten minutes of sustained, glowering drones and mulched electronics rending whirligig partials in a subaquatic, dream-like push-and-pull, leaving the mysteries of Blackest Frypan to steep in the corrosive battery juices of its crack'd electronic instruments.