Premiere // Eomac shares a preview from the 'Reconnect' LP

In a recent interview, Ian McDonnell, aka Eomac, highlighted how producing his last LP, 2016's Bedouin Trax using samples of Arabic music delivered to him by label founder Salem Rashid, has informed his latest LP, Reconnect. The album sees him "take the idea a bit further, [personalising] it using my own voice and sounds from my own culture, from my own Irish background as well."

While the tools maybe be local, the resulting tracks are far from traditional in sound. Reconnect fights its way through aqueous wails, claustrophobic percussive workouts and grunting acoustic distortions with veteran dexterity.

Of McDonnell's sample sources, the Irish bodhran drum feels particularly prevalent throughout the album, revised and applied to a variety of different scenarios. These range from more or less unblemished usage such as on the enchanting 'Lower Your Gaze' through to more opaque applications such as on 'Language Has Failed Us'. The track calls to mind the kinetic footwork microcosms of Sasu Ripatti; toughened low-end shudders and skittish, frost-glazed percussion churning in hypnogogic sway.

With the album due for release on 27 April, McDonnell has kindly offered us an exclusive stream of the track below:

• Published
• Apr 5, 2018

• Credits
• Words by Theo Darton-Moore