Risil – Non Meters Volume 1

The supergroup, eh? Who wants to have the product of months’ worth of ego-heavy circlejerk rammed down their throats? Well, me: I’m more than willing to have a taste (come back, come back, I’m not extending this distasteful metaphor any further) if the participants in Risil include Guillermo Herren (Prefuse 73), Tyondai Braxton (Battles), John McEntire (Tortoise), Zach Hill (Hella), Alejandra Deheza (School Of Seven Bells), Eva Puyuelo Muns (Savath and Savalas), Laurence Pike (Triosk), and Eric Clapton (Derek and the Dominoes). No hang on, that can’t be right. Laurence Pike is in Pivot.This double LP, mine on lovely clear vinyl, is the first of a threatened trilogy. This is probably still sounding rather overblown isn’t? And yet somehow, despite all this baggage, it isn’t. It is vinyl-clear from first listen that Herren is very much at the centre of this project, and having grown a little tired of his recent Prefuse 73 output (nothing wrong with it at all, just feel like I’ve heard it before), I find myself rushing to proclaim this as the best thing he has been involved with for years. Rather than on the beats (which are few and far between), this time all the emphasis is on creating wonderful textures and depths, with an experimental abandon, and with sparkling production (McEntire?).As a result of all this, Non Meters Volume 1 is a remarkable ramble over some quite unexpected terrain. 'There Has To Be' has Sunn O))) fuzz-drone and Alva Noto static under Eva’s breathy vocal loops, rising to a symphonic finale. 'The Air I Breathe' is a deep cacophonous rumble, while 'Son Of Yuctan' luxuriates in backwards vocals, echo, reverb and ghostly overtones. The highlight is 'Oxygen Path', which is suffused with sparkling little slices of metallic percussion, like someone covering an Oval record on doll’s house spoons. One of the several hundred talented drummers involved with this project steps up to chop out a few breakbeats, before the track slowly dissolves into a feedback fog.With talent spurting out of every orifice (sorry), perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised that the first Risil album is such a success. Get yourself some over at Important. Now when is the next volume?Risil on MyspaceThis review originally appeared on the Mapsadaisical blog