Dark Fidelity Hi Fi’s new album Found is full of dreamy ambient textures put to rhythmic pulses and subtle, glitchy beats. Manchester-based producer Rick Jones proves himself adept at building walls of sonic atmosphere. With elements of trip hop, IDM, ambient, and dub coming together into one enigmatic sound, Dark Fidelity Hi Fi’s Found is an album you find yourself peeling layers away well after the first, second, and even third listen.
I’m not sure how to describe this album. Maybe I don’t quite have the vernacular to give it a proper discussion, as I’m not a student of classic dance/IDM music. But then again, I don’t think this is a classic dance/IDM album. There’s beats and rhythms, but Jones covers them in layers of buzzing electronics and droning notes. It works as much as an electronic record as it does accompaniment to transcendental meditation. It’s like a musical guide to some deep inner trip.
Musically, Dark Fidelity Hi Fi jumps from skittery rhythms like on “She Dreams”, “Jarabi Sky”, and “In Your Pursuit of Modern Happiness” to more ambient, textural fare like title track “Found” and “Static Recurrence”. Whether the track moves you along or acts as a gateway to some deeper, transcendent experience it’s always done with exact musical precision.
The production here is clean and in sharp focus. It’s not hazy melancholy like Boards of Canada or frenetic and paranoid like Aphex Twin. It lies in a space that artists like Rival Consoles, Burial, and even Orbital at times reside in. Tracks like “Substancerunner”, “One Thousand Years”, and “Heavenly Splinters” combine both the movement elements and more ambient textures together quite beautifully, all the while displaying Jones’ knack for mood building and musical landscapes.
Dark Fidelity Hi Fi’s Found is a hard album to describe, but not a hard one to enjoy.
7.7 out of 10
Found is available now through Bricolage. Buy it here.
Complex Distractions 
Great sound.
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