- It speaks to the speed of Brian Leeds' development that by the time The Guardian heard of "outsider house" he'd long since left the reductive descriptor behind. While that term might have applied to earlier releases like Aphelia's Theme on Future Times or R.E.G.A.L.I.A for Anthony Naples' Proibito label (as Royal Crown Of Sweden), the Kansas native's first full-length has very little to do with house music on the surface. Sure, there is often a 4/4 pulse and there are even recognizable, semi-danceable drum beats, but Colonial Patterns skews a lot closer to ambient sound collage than anything you're likely to hear in a club.
The album's overall mood is drowsy and tempos are suitably slow. Almost every texture is robbed of its lustre, and melodies languish in dusty, half-finished states. While so much of today's gritty beat experiments feel urban, Colonial Patterns feels rural, like a sort of corrupted pastoral. Tracks like "Anagramme Of My Love" and "Chun-Kee Player" are purely abstract constructions, but with strange grooves hidden in the clouds of crackle and hiss. "Ragtime U.S.A. (Warning)" chugs along at a quickened pace, its one-bar bassline looping into infinity. The whole thing almost takes off when the kick drops back in for the last section, but instead it drifts to a close. "Skug Commune" is similar, built on a persistent head-nodding groove that doesn't really need to go anywhere to be effective. The textural detail is immaculate: each track is exactly as washed out and strange as Leeds wants it to be. As loose as they are, they feel well-crafted and well-mixed.
As a collection of tracks made from short loops and otherworldly samples, Colonial Patterns is an easy fit for Oneohtrix Point Never's label, Software Records. Indeed, the fingerprint of Daniel Lopatin's own work is hard to miss, especially on tracks like "Quivira" or "Prinzif." There is a similarity in the mood, in the wasted, empty weirdness of the tracks. At almost an hour in length, the album does lag a bit in places, but by the time the beautiful, shining tones of "Angel Phase" have faded into the ether, all is forgiven. Colonial Patterns is not a flawless record, but it does open up a whole new world of possibilities for Leeds as a producer, and places him decisively outside any box people might wish to put him in.
Tracklist 01. Struck with Deer Lungs
02. Plucked From the Ground, Towards the Sun
03. Quivira
04. Anagramme of My Love
05. 'Iinzhiid
06. Ragtime U.S.A. (Warning)
07. Monks Mound (Arcology)
08. Prinzif
09. Hopewell (Devil)
10. Fortification III
11. Skug Commune
12. Canticoy
13. Chun-Kee Player
14. Angel (Phase)