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Cold Light - Coldtron2
Cold Light - Coldtron2
Cold Light - Coldtron2
Cold Light - Coldtron2
Style:
Electronic
Label:
FO
Catalog Number:
FO03
Release Date:
August 14, 2026
Format:
Vinyl LP
Regular price
$22.00
Regular price
Sale price
$22.00
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per
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Description
A ragtag crew made up of Portland, Oregon's Best Available Technology, Bristol mainstays Birthmark and Withdrawn, London's the wind between (fka ELDON), Hungarian producer CSNL and South London's Rael, Cold Light extends across borders and genres, making its own distinctive mark on sound-system music. The group's debut album draws a line in the sand between its previous formulations, its members' individual projects and its existence today as a tight, collaborative unit. It's a place for Cold Light and the outfit's network of collaborators (including Irish psych-folk artist Elaine Malone, Akeko and British-Nigerian sound designer Tony Onuchukwu) to formalize a sound that's confidently out on its own, existing in the murky zone between hip-hop, dub, trip-hop and illbient.
Cold Light started out as a label, releasing a slew of 12"s from friends and family. And in 2019, when the imprint was still in its infancy, the Bristol-based friends began performing shows, running into Best Available Technology and dextrous rapper ELDON. The tour quickly evolved into a collaborative experiment and when lockdown cut progress short, the four friends recorded 'Live at the Laundromat' - aka Coldtron1. Since then, they've gone from strength to strength individually and as a group, releasing music on PTP, Felt, 12th Isle, Accidental Meetings and Ghost Notes Worldwide, among other labels, and performing as an improv ensemble with Portishead's Adrien Utley, Fergus Jones (aka Perko) and Civilistjavel!.
On 'Coldtron2', Cold Light defines itself as a singular voice, not simply a collage of divergent ideas and concepts. There's a spread of different producers and vocalists, but they create a rare sense of harmony that links each track, a clearly defined sound that makes the entire record vibrate at the same speed. On 'Riot', for example, withdrawn's hoarse voice beds down on murky, salt-caked kicks and distant brass wails, slowly running towards the wind between's dissociated half-sung chorus. They form an atmosphere that's interstitial - just on the farthest edge of familiarity. And when the percussion pokes through the clouds more visibly on 'I've Known Fires', with saturated snaps rupturing ghostly trip-hop trails and gauzy bass womps, it's still shaved down to a blunted edge.
It's dub that's at the project's core - most obviously visible on the album's lengthy undulating centerpiece 'Fields in B' - but Cold Light never feels limited by heritage; the group's concept of dub is all encompassing, drawing in haunted boom-bap on 'Rockmilk' and gritty noise rock on the weirdly elegiac 'Lessons and Rehearsals (Love Like Blood Too)'. 'Coldtron 002' is a like an echo reverberating through a shared dream, an album that relies on the memories of a plurality of voices, not the demands of individuals.
Cold Light started out as a label, releasing a slew of 12"s from friends and family. And in 2019, when the imprint was still in its infancy, the Bristol-based friends began performing shows, running into Best Available Technology and dextrous rapper ELDON. The tour quickly evolved into a collaborative experiment and when lockdown cut progress short, the four friends recorded 'Live at the Laundromat' - aka Coldtron1. Since then, they've gone from strength to strength individually and as a group, releasing music on PTP, Felt, 12th Isle, Accidental Meetings and Ghost Notes Worldwide, among other labels, and performing as an improv ensemble with Portishead's Adrien Utley, Fergus Jones (aka Perko) and Civilistjavel!.
On 'Coldtron2', Cold Light defines itself as a singular voice, not simply a collage of divergent ideas and concepts. There's a spread of different producers and vocalists, but they create a rare sense of harmony that links each track, a clearly defined sound that makes the entire record vibrate at the same speed. On 'Riot', for example, withdrawn's hoarse voice beds down on murky, salt-caked kicks and distant brass wails, slowly running towards the wind between's dissociated half-sung chorus. They form an atmosphere that's interstitial - just on the farthest edge of familiarity. And when the percussion pokes through the clouds more visibly on 'I've Known Fires', with saturated snaps rupturing ghostly trip-hop trails and gauzy bass womps, it's still shaved down to a blunted edge.
It's dub that's at the project's core - most obviously visible on the album's lengthy undulating centerpiece 'Fields in B' - but Cold Light never feels limited by heritage; the group's concept of dub is all encompassing, drawing in haunted boom-bap on 'Rockmilk' and gritty noise rock on the weirdly elegiac 'Lessons and Rehearsals (Love Like Blood Too)'. 'Coldtron 002' is a like an echo reverberating through a shared dream, an album that relies on the memories of a plurality of voices, not the demands of individuals.
