Ramzi – ‘Houti Kush’ Cassette [1080p]

Although we came to it well late, almost six months after it’s 2014 release date, Bébites  has been one of our fondest discoveries of recent memory. The cassette was the first release on the Pygmy Animals label and introduced us to the wonderful musical world of Ramzi aka Phoebe Guillemot, Canadian based producer with an amazing knack for compacting mind-blowing layers in to lo-fi tracks without ever sounding crowded or overly confronting as a wall of sound.

Rather, Ramzi’s tracks are a totally immersive experience, a view confirmed on first few listens of her new album, Houti Kush. As a solo producer Guillemot draws heavily on psych and mutant synth work to create beat filled worlds ladened with nature samples; literally birds, frogs and the like. We’ve mentioned the influence and pull of soundtracks such as Blade Runner and John Carpenter’s Halloween on the current run of beatsmiths turned synth stars to create moodier and more engaging music. Guillemot as Ramzi eclipses the lot of them.

Sixteen tracks across a forty-two minute album and every part of the sound collages that make it up seems painstakingly thought out. But still, there’s randomness to the structure allowing it to kep an organic feel the entire way through. The language is music and Guillemot’s fluent in what we like to hear – filtered electronics and fresh sounding beats, mostly incomparable to everything else going on at the moment.

Last check there was only about thirty copies from the 200 limited of Houti Kush left on the 1080p bandcamp page. Get on it quick, this is going to be proper classic.

via 1080p

Newly romantic and melodic tropic terrains on the signature perma-zoned alien electronics of Montreal (now Vancouver) based-producer RAMZI’s latest release and 1080p debut. Phoebé Guillemot’s parallel autonomous sci-fi RAMZI world is at once utopian and dystopian in the most wondrous, wide and red-eyed way, and these digital vine cutting expeditions span a vast and varied section of her own CGI’ed imaginary world of disorientating, bouncy hybrid genre experiments, heavily filtered samples, inverted dancehall rhythms, shredded jungle, distroid-vibed atmospheres and super weird, melodic repetitions.

Guillemot’s voyages have always been deeply rhythmic but the heavy psilocybic zones on “Houti Kush” step through from the frenetic/maximalist potencies of her previous “BÉBiTES” release into restrained but equally imagistic investigations into warm but unknown atmospheres, always humid and wavy with delirium. Even the actual field recordings of frogs at night on planet earth sound like the furthest out, web-footed cosmic creatures from her Houti realm.

Locking into very listenable but extremely twisted grooves and sort of magical-realist tones while retaining her specifically crazed, cluttered vibe throughout, Guillemot locates herself as the “Houti princess” of an album that actively seeks a new voice and distinct type of beauty. There’s a constant feeling that the dualities in her tracks could push them too far into the ever-present canopy of polyrhythms, but RAMZI somehow restrains it just at just the right level of their mutations.