pedro - early pedro
now that james rutledge has become an artist of global recognition (guest appearances on recent prefuse 73 album, remixes by danger mouse etc etc !) it's only right that these early ep's which founded the launch of the rather fine melodic label, are collated and released as a complete album, thus saving us late-in-the-day fans from the excess of ebay madness.
prior to hearing the 'pedro' album i read lots of comparisons which connected the music of pedro to the downtempo hip hop soundtrack that dj shadow was making, which never made sense once i heard the cutup midi'd laptop beats of the album. however, now that i have heard these gloriously emotive tracks, combining melancholy autumnal beauty, scratchy beats and far away ambience, all becomes clear. though to distance themselve of any shallow trip hop tag these 15 tracks are completely devoid of the clinical perfection that dj shadow uses, as these tracks reveal their natural sound sources combining traditional instrumentation alongside the new technology.
collated in strictly chronological order, the tracks hold together a whole, allowing the acoustic guitars of 'repent', the piano beauty of 'field dreams' (surely this ha been picked up by an advert somewhere along the line - tis indeed perfect), the toybox noises of 'hoop', to breathe and flow easily over the listener, before we get down to the more experimental aspect of pedro's oeuvre, which is brought in towards the end when we arrive at the kathryn williams collaborations. these were originally released on the moshi moshi label back in 2001, 'demons in cases', which, despite the passing of a few years still leaves me totally mesmerised as kathryn's vocals interact with the processed clicks and cracks in such a way that literally sends shivers up my spine having heard the track 100's of times, the splendour has yet to subside - a truly masterful combination which defies simple description - a song that simply needs to be heard - not written about.
a totally perfect way to spend 48 minutes and 8 seconds.