Brian Leeds produces electronic music under the name Huerco S. His debut album for Software is titled Colonial Patterns. On Colonial Patterns, Leeds treats his Kansas City region as a universe worthy of its own electronic music.<\/p>\n
To that end, Leeds deconstructs Midwestern techno and house tropes. The pieces are corrugated, rough, and decompositional. Working cheaply, Leeds conscientiously uses low-end software, synths and cassettes so as to subvert the gloss of so much urban dance music, giving tracks an impressionistic, emotive feel. The result is uniquely Midwestern: there is an expansiveness to each piece that suits the open space and the storied past of its inhabitants.<\/p>\n
A native of Eastern Kansas, Brian Leeds first turned to music and visual art as a teenager. He attended the University of Kansas where he studied installation art and ceramics before leaving school to focus exclusively on sound design and music production. Recent releases include \u201cNo Jack,\u201d off the EP for Wicked Bass, and the twenty-minute synth exploration \u201cUntitled\u201d which Leeds cut in collaboration with Exael for Software\u2019s favorite Opal Tapes.<\/p>\n
Colonial Patterns shares Jon Hassell\u2019s hybridized experiments in percussive ambience, as well as William Basinski\u2019s strobing melancholia. When tracks subtly veer into house\/techno territories, they mirror the no frills dance mechanics of Midwest figureheads Ron Hardy, Omar S and Theo Parrish.<\/p>\n
Non-musical influences are architect Paolo Soleri, known for the concept of \u201cArcology\u201d (a fusion of architecture and ecology), as well as the ancient Native American mound city of Cahokia. The site of Cahokia in Illinois marks prior Native American societies whose existence was derailed by the colonialist revelation of the so-called New World. Colonial Patterns plays with the idea of the \u201cNew World\u201d by ruralizing its historically urban music, and by stripping techno and house of glitzy fanfare.<\/p>\n
Most exemplary of this sonic architecture is opener \u201cStruck With Deer Lungs\u201d and closer \u201cAngel (Phase).\u201d Both layer subtle rhythmic pulses with broader strokes of deep sustain, creating a pair of intro\/outro signals that shape the album\u2019s whole sequence and function as main supports to the album\u2019s busier core. Bass heavy, Detroit techno leaning \u201c\u2018linzhiid\u201d and \u201cQuiviria\u201d deliver foreboding standouts with snappy economy.<\/p>\n
Stripped of pop devices, discarding utopian delusions, Colonial Patterns is electronic music for the open prairie. Inherently inhabitable, yet strangely dispeopled, it\u2019s a fitting universe for this otherworldly debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brian Leeds produces electronic music under the name Huerco S. His debut album for Software is titled Colonial Patterns. On Colonial Patterns, Leeds treats his Kansas City region as a universe worthy of its own electronic music.<\/span><\/p>\n