AUTOLUMP: LORD THAT MADE ME MY TEA!
They must put something in the tea up in Hull, spawning ground of the mighty Autolump. Ask Dr Alex Paterson about his old friend Fil Le Gonidec and, along with the seal of approval, back comes a wide grin; ‘He drinks a lot of tea’.
These marathon brew-stoked sessions obviously pay off as Fil and partner-in-Autolump Ian Auto, pour their latest P.G.-tipped sonic pyramid; a triple-header displaying further dimensions of electronic intricacy, surreal splashes and vat-busting bass frequencies, plantation space testicles a-swinging all the way.
Fil’s first Autolump excursion was courtesy of Lx Paterson’s courageously pioneering Badorb.com operation in 2001; the tellingly-titled Cupa T EP was the label’s third release, featuring three tracks [Biometric Electro Rhythms, Maser and FlixL] igniting the flame under their steaming creative vat, which also spilled via two tracks over the Bless You compilation. They also remixed Loophead’s Firefly, blessing it with the title Shiny Balls. The glare from Autolump’s creative mega-plums next dazzled the Musick 5 EP for Shitkatapult with ‘God’s Speed’ [fnurble] in 2005, before Lumpy Psalms turned up on Platipus’s Art Of Chill 4, in the hands of a rampant Dr Alex. Also in 2007, The Lump remixed Book Of Hours on the Rootmasters Push Once Ep.
Now they’re pouring mischievous electronic gold for Malicious Damage, starting another grand mission for the illustrious label with this little beauty, which kicks off magnificently with the atmosphere-drenched winter wonderland of Diamond Dust, whose theme becomes clearer with the occasional exclamation that, ‘Everything was just covered in snow’. To this end, swirling blizzards of eerie space strings and thong-snapping whiplash effects stack up along the icy vistas over stonking acid groove action to make the perfect Christmas Eve’s dream sequence or even Santa’s sac-buster.
Chemical Beats is nothing to do with two former Dust brothers, more another fine example of how The Lump manage to homage electronic dance music’s cutting edge sonic foraging side, while never forgetting the major motivation where those chemical beats are at the core next to the metaphysical mole’s stiffie; ingrained, defiant and celebratory. To hammer home their point the title becomes a chanted mantra over spaced percussive elements playing footsie with a minimal variation of the eternal life-force throb.
The duo have supported The Orb around the world, part of the extended family, so obviously there’s the odd common flash, a starry-eyed and laughing irreverence born out of traversing similar mental and musical ski-slopes. That bass is ultra-important, beats treated like 90s Detroit surgical attack weapons or the gentle truss on a young buffalo when the tempo drops to dub on the half-ambient Nelli’s Fridge. This ten-minute high plains drifter builds from near-silence through weightless cave floatation into a cinematic desert sand-storm, heightened by spaghetti western guitar twang while the ever-present undergrowth of electronic swells and billowing creepers is allowed to come into its own too.
To Hull and back, returning with an aromatic sack full of herbal whoopee.