It's An Endless World, according to Holobeams



Splitting time between Glasgow and Nagoya is a producer I haven't entertained for a while. My first (and at that point, last) encounter with Iain Foxwell's Holobeams moniker (formerly Holobeams and Broken Machines) was midsummer 2012, shortly after the warm and broad reception of two-track debut "Clouds/Sunrise": "Heads in the Clouds" a crunchy electronic ordeal slowly and gloriously infiltrated by sparkly smooth piano; "85 Sunrise" packing the same crunch, but with a more abrasive electronic melody.

All web searches seem to lead back to the hype of that time frame, but since then, Foxwell has released four more EPs, the most recent being January 4's It's An Endless World.

This latest effort arrives about a year after the chillier outer space synth of Chase the Horizon (2013), marking the longest gap between releases. And the difference is audible: in the cycling and layering of each track's motifs, the offensive zone skating remains seamless but the rippling cross-ice passes are now smooth too -- the audio effect equivalent to what looks like a freshly zamboni'd neutral zone. And I'm not just pulling the hockey references because I can; if Chase the Horizon was a cool evening fog, It's An Endless World is absolutely crystalline, ice cold with warm reflections.

You should really just play through the entire thing -- these EPs are never long enough once through -- but "Breaking Wave" is (appropriately so) the height of the sparkle.