CD, Hymen Records, 2009
caul.org/millipede.html
This is the first release of Porteur de L’image’s Don Hill’s side project, Millipede. Don has been creating music for over 10 years and now has found a home for this magnificent project on Hymen Records. The auditory terrain of Millipede is an uneasy landscape of glitch-ridden drums, ambient pads and thick lows. The album conveys Don’s desired emotions via thick ethereal melodies and symphonic cascades that carry the listener away.
“All My Best Intentions” moves a little slow for the first three songs but proceeds to hammer home a lovely barrage, both welcoming and menacing, about halfway through; it steeps until the waves of cold and warm tones cannot be held any longer. The first song, “Endless” starts as a smooth-rolling song rich with thick pads, ambient stutters and slowly adds tempo via some gritty minimalist drums and ethnic sung samples. “Gentle Devils” glides through a haze of swooping pads with glitch drums frantically beating the song into a beautiful electro waltz, slinking back beneath the warm atmosphere. “Recesses” delves into the depths and sates the appetite for ambient hungers, producing tonals that lurk and strain amidst 8-bit clicks and hard industrial kicks. “Diplopoda Crawl” slithers with filtered arps, low bass hits and electronic howls under a break beat, rising and falling with momentum and aggression. “Conceivor” is an emotional storm of melody and distortion. “Coming Storm” comes up a little short following “Conceivor”, until about midway through the song lightning strikes and the drums go wild. “Reoccurring Themes in the Artist’s Work” is simply beautiful and demonstrates Millipede’s mastery of style, incorporating simple guitar, heavily filtered and distorted drums, and light melodies. “Wonders and Spirals” continues in the light ethereal tone of the prior song. “30,000” is a cold landscape of metal beats and hollow pads carried on snowy winds. “Song Crystals” brings back some dreamlike warmth with liquid harps and minimalist drums on a soft IDM ballad. “Deepest Peace” is a beautiful closer: choir samples soothe the ears while strings pound out a rhythm in space – the rhythm begins to ache towards eruption as hard glitch and clanging kicks carry the song to a soft whisper. The remix of “Deepest Peace (Disturbed as Hecq)” is as the names states: Hecq turns this peaceful place into a home for hard tech kicks and d’n’b influenced drums and sweeping basslines.
My personal favorites from this album are “Diplopoda Crawl”, “Reoccurring Themes in the Artist’s Work”, “Deepest Peace” and of course, Hecq’s remix of “Deepest Peace”. This album will have new and old listeners of genre’s such as IDM, glitch and dark ambient coming back to listen again and again.
[8.5/10]
— James Church