mmph - Serenade EP (Tri Angle)

The second EP from mmph presents a classical sensibility cut up and pasted back together again via electronics

Sae Heum Han’s classical roots imbues his work with melodic structures that he is then free to break into and remake. He disrupts his own flow, crafting fractured soundscapes that are no less structurally beautiful. Listening to the Serenade EP is like staring at strings of DNA code as a non-scientist yet grasping meaning during moments of clarity. mmph’s sound is full of clarity.

“Minuet” fires up with growling post-rock riffs, although refuses to settle into a doomy groove. Bleeps and pulses signify a shift into chopped up classical, with a lightness of touch that allows the riffs to back in and out without destabilising the whole. There’s more than a hint of Go Plastic era Squarepusher in the glitching “Tragedy”, although mmph allows more widescreen wonder to seep in. The track shatters like a broken window as someone tumbles through it, shards of glass reflecting vivid moments from their past before they’re gone for good.

Standout piece “Woodlawn” brings English pastoral expansiveness up against quick-paced Japanese minimalism, before giving them a good hard shove onto the dancefloor. The juxtapositions feel as if they need to occur. It’s machine music that has more than a pulse.

End times arrive with “Elegy”, conjuring up images of a dystopian cityscape. At least until someone lets the ghosts out; spectral angels seething together and singing in chorus. The title track embraces the widescreen, offering a particular palette of maximalism as mmph rides off into the horizon, never quite leaving the city behind, but burning bright inside and outside of it instead.

tri-anglerecords.com/mmph