The trio of Andrew Blick, Robin Blick and James Weaver have already received considerable acclaim for their looping, swirling electroacoustic racket, one which touches on Reich/Glass-style minimalism, post-industrial battery and, to these ears at least, the intoxicating melodic fizz of Lightning Bolt side-project Wizardzz.
For their third album they’re joined by Katherine Blake on violin, vocals and recorder, who nudges their sound closer to a kind of frantic pastoralism. Imagine your favourite bits from Tony Banks and Rick Wakeman synth solos looped and layered into infinity and you’ll have a fair idea of what to expect from Utility Music.
On first listen, Gyratory System sound like they are making the happiest music on earth, such is the real effervescence and brightness of their locked grooves. On closer inspection though, that happiness reveals itself as having more than a touch of mania to it. Over the course of Utility Music, the group build up a formidable intensity that might be maddening were it not so addictively tuneful.
The album deserves to be filed alongside The Field’s similarly relentless Cupid’s Head as a thoroughly persuasive celebration of the joy of repetition.
