Skoud "Systems And Drafts"

Author: Matthew Stanley.

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It’s criminal I have taken so long to review this album, because it is brilliantly composed ambient glitch electronica. I mean there is actually no way someone should be able to take what sounds like a Gameboy beeping and turn it into a piece of absorbing music. Simon Koudriavstev aka Skoud has an intriguing tale alongside his music, Russia to Sweden to Carlisle, possibly not the most logical progression one might imagine.

The rhythm is so densely absorbing, it takes around ten minutes before the experimental beeps and sounds evolve into something that could perhaps be considered to be a ‘song’, it borrows heavily from artists like Múm and Boards of Canada. If anything the first five tracks are an introduction to what Skoud can perform, and each are so varied that it should mess with the flow but somehow it blends from the electronica William Orbit-esque ‘System 25’, into the menacing drum loop and static of ‘Maida Vale’. The masterpiece that is ‘System 20’ just needs to be revelled in. It’s like the Postal Service but with better beats and less singing.

However what follows is true testament to the densely absorbing creation that is ‘Systems and Drafts’. ‘Fu’ sounds like a Gameboy turned up to eleven, ‘515 Jackson Adaptor’ has an ethereal quality to it that makes it easy to enveloped by the wall of sound and static if you haven’t already been consumed. However my one gripe is that the child’s voice on ‘THC’ sounds far too close to the Crazy Frog for my liking and while it loses its way a bit with ‘Bagtag’ the final tracks culminating in the beautiful piano solo that is ‘Requiem for an Art College’ would make Chris Martin weep. Possibly. It shouldn’t be good, it shouldn’t work but Skoud has turned for many something of beeps and beats into a masterpiece.

Listen: www.myspace.com/skoud

Tracklist:

1. System 3 Draft 2
2. Saker
3. System 25
4. Maida Vale
5. System 19
6. System 20
7. Fu
8. Lystandrige
9. 515 Jackie Adaptor
10. THC
11. Bagtag
12. Beat 1-1
13. Requiem for the Art College