- We first heard Jack Lever when he partnered with Synkro for Kiyoko, a project that showed the two producers writing bass music lullabies. His solo career as Bering Strait got off to a rockier start with an overreaching Apollo debut in 2013 that James Lawrence referred to as "spa fodder." Last year, Lever launched the Bering Strait Archives label with a cassette release that gave his pristine surfaces some much-needed grit. He's taken that a step further for Archive 0, the most challenging thing he's done so far.
While there's always been something soothing about Lever's sentimental strains, Archive 0 achieves a different kind of relaxation. The tape is built around a trilogy of ambient pieces called "Concrete X-28H," three long stretches of cold, clammy drone that sound like they're being played through a metal tube. It's the kind of ambient music that's easy to get lost in, and each track is enjoyable if not oozing with personality.
It's the pockets in between the "Concrete X-28H" sections where the real promising stuff happens. "Name-VAc" is dramatically slow-mo techno with creaks and moans that make it sound like Andy Stott, while "Transmission 110" brings up the speed but keeps the smokescreen. Both tracks are almost zen in their simplicity, but there's something about their heaving, patient nature that makes them eerie. The same goes for "Fog Open Key," which sounds like one of those feel-good arpeggios from his older work drowned in fuzz. With its early-morning quality, "Fog Open Key" is evocative in way that's hard to put your finger on.
Tracklist01. Concrete X-28h Drone C
02. Name-Vac
03. Concrete X-28h Drone B
04. Fog Open Key
05. Transmission 110
06. Concrete X-28h Drone A