Hugo Race: Between Hemispheres
(Gusstaff Records, Poland. UK Distribution: Baked Goods)
A trip into the glacial interstice between quantum and digital, these interdimensional meditations traverse the synapse between the left and right sides of the brain, between thought and expression, between two oscillating magnetic poles - between hemispheres.
www.helixed.net www.myspace.com/hugorace
International Press
UNCUT (UK) January 2010
4 stars
Remarkable ambient excursion from ex-Bad Seed.
This is the culmination of a long and strange journey for Race, who started musical life in the Melbourne post-punk scene. This entirely instrumental album is at once pan-global in its influence, using African instruments like the ngoni, while also reflecting the duality of both sides of the brain – hence the punning title. What’s so arresting about Between Hemispheres is its physicality. The ambience reminds of Eno and Harold Budd but elements of distortion suggest a man not afraid to get his shoes dirty. There’s a soiled intensity about this album – both sweeping beauty and true grit.
- David Stubbs
THE WIRE (UK) JANUARY 2010
Hugo Race
Between Hemispheres
It's more than 25 years since Hugo Race was guitarist in the first incarnation of The Bad Seeds, and more than 20 since he left to form post-punk vehicles like The Wreckery and the True Spirit. Time has clearly wrought changes; Between Hemispheresi is an altogether more articulate experience which pits Race's scruffy, bluesy twitches and jerks against brooding surges of white noise. West African influences are also folded into the cinematic mix - "Antegone" is a spectral dialogue between stark, baritone desert blues and clouds of radio interference, while "Unknown#09" threads spindly ngoni patterns through gaseous exhalations reminiscent of Apollo-era Eno. But this is no glossy, coffee-table fusion project; in Race's hands, the kora on "White Spheres" negotiates eerie, dissonant intervals, and a commendably haphazard approach to mixing delivers a succession of unexpected sonic incursions thoughout.
- Julian Cowley
