Gareth Hardwick Aversions
Boy, the risks of being a modern musician. The story goes that Nottingham-based drone hypno-sorcerer […]
Boy, the risks of being a modern musician. The story goes that Nottingham-based drone hypno-sorcerer Gareth Hardwick lost the bulk of his new album in some kind of computer calamity and, rather than attempting to salvage it from memory or begin again from scratch, he shifted direction and instead requisitioned seven reinterpretations of works from his back catalog. Hardwick is an ardent minimalist, working with a palette generally limited to looped guitar and, well, silence, and his remixers hold to that. Library Tapes’ piano chords trail like smoldering ghosts, Strategy’s track buzzes with a loungey deep-space vibe, and the otherworldly scrapes and textures of Machinefabriek’s version of “Lost in the Memory” conjure a distant chill. Two of Hardwick’s brief original works did manage to survive the computer meltdown and appear here, lingering on the album as alluring as any drone we’ve heard this year.