Digital Rain Systems Vol 1

Digital Rain Systems hail from Winnipeg and their music presents a perfect halfway point between the lounged-out house of Vancouver and the more ethereal beats bubbling up from Montreal. The project started as a way for Cole Woods and Jory Hasselmann, both members of the band Human Music, to explore their budding love for house, techno and ambient music. The resultsimply titled “Vol 1.” sounds like a duo discovering decades’ worth of electronic music all at once. They list Larry Heard, 808 State and Windham Hill Records as influences for a sound that skirts the edges of classic techno, dusty house, dub, electro and New Age music. Those might be standard influences these days, but Digital Rain Systems put them together in a far from standard way. Woods and Hasselmanns recording techniques stay true to their live music roots: recorded off-the-cuff in a single take straight to tape from a BOSS mixer. The songs are built around samples and fastened to heavy, bucking basslines and twinkly chords that come from their modest collection of hardware. It’s a rough-and-tumble sound that recalls the early work by Canadian acts like D. Tiffany and Aquarian Foundation but is very much their own. Take the plunge on this adventurous spread of audio. Youll be glad you did