Enigmatic newcomer ROPE reveals the mind-bending “Welcome Back To Earth”

Following on from the bouncing, arcade-infused debut offering “Chromatography”, this new cut - written the day that Tim Peake returned to earth from the International Space Station - sees the mysterious newcomer blend gently uneasing production with structural unrest to create a shadowy, immersive hue that nods to the continued brilliance of Aphex Twin. Exploring the ideas of a world that the aforementioned astronaut will never return to, it's a song that mourns a world we will never see again, nothing is how it was left and nothing will be the same.

So what do we know about this faceless producer? Where does the name come from? “I took it from the Hitchcock film of the same name," ROPE tells us. "I love how the tension builds in the film and it's all shot in one go, there's something really exciting about that even though it's like the oldest trick in the book. I want to take that building tension into my music and have more of a linear feel to it.”

And that tension is indeed apparent in “Welcome Back To Earth” as rain shower hissing builds into twitching, snapping electronic beats and off-kilter rhythms are given space to breathe as the track develops.

As far as influences go, it’s somewhat unsurprising to hear that science fiction features, as an otherworldly tone dominates proceedings. But it’s a combination of arts that really inspire: “Asimov is probably the author I've read most of but Dune by Frank Herbert really inspired me. It turns out it inspired some others as well, Kurt Stenzl made a beautiful synth scape album for a film about it and earlier on a French dude called Bernard Szajner released an album called Visons of Dune under his Z moniker. Both really amazing records, I actually listened to them both whilst reading it - highly recommended.”

“I've always been drawn to electronic music,” ROPE continues, “but when I was growing up I tended to focus on guitar as it's what I had around, and my elder brother was already good on keys and I wanted to be a bit different. I then spent a lot of time manipulating the guitar and playing around with drones, trying to make it like a synth. Then at some point I picked up a couple of synthesisers and sequencers and played with them more and more. I find it really immersive jamming with these things as you can kinda do more than one thing at a time and the sonic possibilities are huge.”

There’s undoubtedly an immersive quality to the work but at the same time “Welcome Back…” never quite settles, and in turn refuses to let its listener settle. Just when you think you have your head around its whirring arcade game refrain, you are shot off course. “I’m always looking at some point to fuck the track up and turn it on its head where possible,” explains ROPE.

Sighting Oneohtrix Point Never as a dream collaborator - “basically to steal his techniques” - ROPE is in a world of its own for now. Don’t be fooled by the name, this is otherworldly work, but with the hope of a live show and the desire to work with vocalists, we could be set to find out even more about this eye-opening new character in the electronic scene.