Lee Gamble's acclaimed series of releases for Bill Kouligas' Pan label have typically explored the space between the ambient interludes on jungle records, or else sounded like techno records after they've been melting in a furnace room for a while. After starting the forward-thinking club imprint UIQ in 2015, helping to foster the careers of artists like Lanark Artefax and Zuli, Gamble surfaced on Kode9's lauded Hyperdub label in 2017. Mnestic Pressure occupies a similar fuzzy, nebulous space as Gamble's earlier releases, filled with melted chords and billowing textures, but the beats on this one are generally harder and more fractured. Tracks such as "Istian" feature blown-out, skittering drums that seem like they're struggling to stay upright, and things get more challenging on "23 Bay Flips," a patchwork of blunted stop-start wonky hip-hop rhythms, festering fuzz, and distracting city sounds. The beats get more aggressive on "East Sedducke," which has convulsing jungle breaks being pummeled into oblivion. While the beats are constantly tense and on edge, Gamble doesn't forsake jungle's ethereal, euphoric qualities, and the lush ambient pads manage to float their way to the top of the mix. Sometimes it takes a while for them to surface, such as on the Autechre-like brain scrambler "Swerva," but there's usually some sort of calm, spacious element to these tracks. "Quadripoints" mainly consists of bright, rapidly flashing notes over a brisk, steady tick, gradually disintegrated by echo and static. "Ignition Lockoff" is an absolute monster, sounding like one of Andy Stott's diseased electro experiments after a few doses of speed. The beatless "Atergo Real" sounds like Arca visiting Drexciya's underwater headquarters, but nobody could get a drum machine to work, so they left it out. As broken and abstract as much of this album sounds, Gamble shows that he's still somewhat of a traditionalist at heart with the atmospheric jungle rinse-out "Ghost," which easily could've been released by Suburban Base or Moving Shadow back in 1995, alongside classics by D'Cruze and Foul Play. Mnestic Pressure is a challenging but thoroughly stunning album that finds Gamble significantly pulling his vision more into focus than before.
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