Echoes of Time EP

An eldritch beauty ripe with autumnal tone and mushied lushness, ‘She Healed Him In Her Sleep’ follows in the creeping vein of XVARR’s acclaimed 2018 tape ‘Serpent Power’ to bloom his sound with an organic, elemental quality and energy that binds Sufi trance to original kosmische and the kind of quietly humming, pastoral vibe typical of early British synth music.

In four tracks XVARR paints rolling sinewave vistas that unfurl with a timelessly slow-burning and romantic vision, ranging from cinematic sentiments that Eno would be proud of, to passages of amniotic ambient atavism and dream sequence arps that seduce listeners to the sweetest soporific states of mind and distract from everyday reality.

The gently elegiac synth-brass fanfare and strings of the title song unmistakably owe as much to 0PN as Eno’s stately early work, while the plangent jangle of ‘Past Masters’ surely recalls the hiraeth and pull of the sea and land found in Zoviet France’s enigmatic rituals. The pulsing ‘Echoes of Time’ most poignantly brims with the Eastern-oriented optimism of ‘60s and ‘70s electronics, channelling Harmonia via JD Emmanuel, and ‘Terminal Manoeuvre’ instinctively dowses a bout of BoC-like nostalgia in 3 minutes of lilting melody and elliptical oscillator wooze.

We could hardly imagine a lovelier fanfare for the change of the seasons. Time it all with sunset, fleeces and freaky fungi for optimal immersion (and possible optical side-effects).