COUNCIL ESTATE ELECTRONICS – ARKTIKA – GLACIAL MOVEMENTS

The slow and steady beats of Council Estate Electronics hide a harder edge. ‘Urals’ may have a reassuring tone to begin with, but it presents a cloudy picture, which becomes rather dark and unsettling in the strangely titled ‘567 foot 33,500 ton’ – which is revealed to be the vital statistics of the Russian icebreaker Arktika, on which the album is based. Everything falls into place then, as this collaborative album from Justin K Broadrick and Diarmuid Dalton use their analog synths and electronics to create the slow moving music of power that would be most apt as a soundtrack for such a vessel. And yet, despite the power, a calming sense of ambience remains.
 
Ben Hogwood
 
4 out of 5