Raime, the project of London-based producers Tom Halstead and Joe Andrews, Raime, i.e. the London-based duo of producers Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead, heralded a new era in electronic dark ambient music with their digitally sculpted EP Raime (Blackest Ever Black, 2011): the ghostly drones and convoluted tribal drumming of Retread, the wavering industrial-funk mirage of This Foundry, the echoes of monk choirs flanked by robotic percussion patterns and symphonic dissonant drones of We Must Hunt Under The Wreckage of Many Systems.

Live instrumentation, instead, rules on the full-length Quarter Turns Over A Living Line (Blackest Ever Black, 2012). The most psychological aggressive features of their project are revealed in claustrophobic futuristic industrial compositions like Passed Over Trail (a hovering sub-bass rumble with sudden explosions of metallic noise) and especially Your Cast Will Tire (whose marching rhythm of chains and steps contains an embryonic melody) that are cinematic enough to compete with John Carpenter's soundtracks and sometimes even fit for a dance-club like Exist In The Repeat Of Practice. But the core of their art is delivered in the manner of a deadpan, detached spectator, like when The Last Foundry slowly reveals sub-bass moans, anguished glissandoes, banging basement machinery without any trace of emotion. Ditto for the solemn and funereal zombie prison walk of Soil And Colts (with atonal gothic overtones, like in an extremely anemic and dilated case of noir jazz) and for the closing limping dirge of The Dimming Of Road And Rights. The execution is surgical. The sonic space is crystal clear. The only problem with this music is that it tends to be repetitive to the point of becoming pointless. One has to pay attention to tiny details that last a few seconds in order to perceive life behind the curtain of death.

I Raime, il progetto di Tom Halstead e Joe Andrews da Londra, scolpivano digitalmente EP di musica industrial. Invece, la strumentazione dal vivo la fa da padrona in Quarter Turns Over A Living Line (Blackest Ever Black, 2012). L'aggressività psicologica del loro progetto viene rivelata in composizioni industrial claustrofobiche e futuristiche come Passed Over Trail ma soprattutto Your Cast Will Tire (con un'embrione di melodia in un ritmo marziale di catene e passi), cinematografiche quanto basta per competere con le colonne sonore dei film di John Carpenter, ma talvolta, come Exist In The Repeat Of Practice, vanno anche bene per una discoteca. Ma il cuore della loro arte si esprime in maniera impassibile e distaccata, come quando The Last Foundry lentamente rivela gemiti infrasonori, glissati angosciati, macchine che martellano senza traccia d'emozioni. Idem per la lenta e metodica passeggiata zombi nelle prigioni di Soil And Colts e per il zoppicante lamento funebre di chiusura di The Dimming Of Road And Rights. L'esecuzione è chirurgica. Lo spazio sonoro è cristallino. L'unico problema è che questa musica tende alla ripetizione fino all'inutilità. Bisogna fare attenzione a quei dettagli che durano pochi secondi per scoprire la vita dietro il sipario della morte.