Giugno & Reece Thomas - The Pleasure Gardens of Cairns

Icy noise and techno minimalism from two of the underground’s most prolific collaborators; Giugno (AKA Broken Plllar, artist Thomas Carney) and Reece Thomas (Alocasia Garden) sees out Shadow World’s 2022 for the last Bandcamp Friday of the year.

7 tracks of caustic distortion, throbbing drum machine serialism and devastating synthpop hooks chart a cold northern-European winter like no other tape out this season. Intrinsically nocturnal, the high hats shimmer like shards from street lights and passing cars. Throbbing kickdrums and bass lurk in the shadows while synth pads and pianos hang like freezing fog around deserted streets before sunrise.

This is grainy early digital cinema played out through razor sharp filters and dubbed out delays, it feels like isolation or loneliness, surrounded by a vortex of other disconnected lives and stories. Separated by language, separated by understanding and separated by the hustle; often we mean to connect for weeks, months, years even, but those messages stay on ‘read’ and it gets harder to find the way back. As ‘Gardens’ comes to an exhausted, semi-conscious close on ‘Fleeting Bird Calls Echo in the Castle,’ the melodic refrains find us where started, perfectly looping back into opening track ‘The Pleasure Gardens of Cairns,’ stretching its arm out to bare the strain of another freezing cold day, alone.