Biotron Shelf: "Three Ten to Euston"

Label bosses don’t often get to out-compose their own signings, so when Murray “Mint” Fisher and Will “Cheju” Bolton joined forces in 2006, they only had two choices: set up Mint & Cheju, the world’s campest detective agency, or record an electronica album and release it on U-Cover Records. They did that; nothing happened. Bolton and Fisher then came up with a second venture: they’d start Boltfish Recordings and discover electronic talent of their own, making sure all releases received the right exposure/airplay/gatefold sleeving. This idea took off, and Boltfish Records have helped get some of the more out-there debut projects out there (look up last year’s Skytree album and find a little-known milestone in what-the-fuckedness). And now that the Mint/Cheju egos have fully healed, they’ve dug up their old Biotron Shelf moniker, and want to see if they can honor their old beatwork now that they’ve made it, and live in Canary Wharf, and eat at steak chains.

Biotron Shelf’s comeback album, Cloud Bands and Arabesques, is as melancholic/crunched up as anything Bolton and Fisher have commissioned themselves, with an added twist on Canary Wharf’s history that addresses the district’s year-round rail maintenance scheme. “Three Ten to Euston” shows both producers as big Christian Bale fans, crossing the mystique of 3:10 to Yuma (2007) with Bale’s early London headfuck Reign of Fire (2002). Like a panoramic piece of film music set to a click track—and a repeatedly twanged Jew’s harp—“Euston” rattles for three straight minutes along a shuffling, spastic drum line, the type of beat Aphex Twin would have cooked up back before he was shaving. It’s got that listenability Boltfish demaind of their acts but still sounds crisp and scientific, and shows Biotron Shelf can stick to their own rules, and not just make tooth-loosening glitch music. As a comeback, “Euston” sounds doubly accessible. Shame the same can’t be said for the DLR train.