The Golden Filter return with new LP Autonomy, a sparse, purposeful and powerful sonic declaration ready to destroy dancefloors and puncture souls

A club at the end of the world and on the edge of time. Every night is the last night. Penelope Trappes and Stephen Hindman have taken up residency there as The Golden Filter. Autonomy is the soundtrack, a sparse, purposeful and powerful sonic declaration. Where minimal wave meets acid house and subterranean pop music.

The Golden Filter’s follow-up to Still // Alone (Optimo Music, 2017) is the sound of machines given life and made to understand that time is in short supply. Released on their own 4GN3S label, Autonomy balances album journey and killer dancefloor cuts with seeming ease.

“Downturn” is a sonic pressure chamber, opening up a sealed-off environment and allowing the listener to clamber down within. Beneath the surface awaits the minimal wave breath of “Coercion”, which sets the mood with samurai-like precision and intensity. As a new dawn fades, electronic resistance rises. Then “Electric Light” pulses out of the darkness, edging towards ascension, before hitting with spiralling synth lines, stop-start drum machines and a post-punk killer chorus. It’s electronic music that makes every part of the head, heart and body want – or rather need – to dance. The Golden Filter are, on the strength of this track alone, the true heirs to New Order.

The title track is a twisted machine howl put under control, coiling broken electro circling around a descending bassline, with something of Miss Kittin in Trappes’s delivery. Its sparseness is beautiful, yet the track gains even more once prised open and bursts of acid house are set free, bleeps let loose. There’s a real deftness to proceedings; joy and good humour are alive and well, moving between the shadows. The decks are thus cleared for “Infinity” to blast forth.

Welcome to the COR (Central Office of Rave) where the galaxy moving Roland 303 of Hardfloor’s “Acperience I” and Josh Wink’s “Higher State of Consciousness” are the order of the day (and night). Little might be sane in the outside world, but in here on the dancefloor there remains hope and possibility. The cavernous bass of “Infinity” channels Hardfloor without the need of a pounding 4/4. Instead, breakbeats tear through the space-time continuum and a higher state is indeed achieved. Whilst “We Are the Prey” leans towards Trappes’s solo work, albeit under stripped back, knife-edge electronic conditions that could be a half-speed Photek.

“Cosmic truth”, declares Trappes from the edge of the universe on “Wisdom”, which teases elastic acid magic out of Roland. Bouncing from wall to wall, the track is simple yet addictive, a phuture mini-classic. Surfacing occurs during “All the Queens”, a torch song emanating from the heart of a nuclear blast. It is certainly an ending, but one without closure. Think the final scene of The Terminator; there’s a storm coming and The Golden Filter know it.

thegoldenfilter.bandcamp.com

Stewart Gardiner
Latest posts by Stewart Gardiner (see all)