WORKTAPES, by SDEM

WORKTAPES

by SDEM

supported by

more...

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

£8.08 GBP or more
Limited edition Cassette
Cassette + Digital Album
pro duplicated cassette edition - 50 copies only !

Includes unlimited streaming of WORKTAPES via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Sold Out

1.	COLD GL 03:06	buy track
2.	18.5.22 06:04	buy track
3.	ZIRK2 02:52	buy track
4.	QTRO 06:24	buy track
5.	ES19 10:08	buy track
6.	SKYWAVE 06:00	buy track
7.	THERMO FADE 03:31	buy track

about

boomkat.com Product Review:

Tom Knapp aka SDEM follows last year’s excellent ‘Vortices’ album with a first physical edition of 2022’s WORKTAPES, a mesmerising 40 minute session of liquid soundscapes, subs and clipped rhythms. Followers of latter-day AE, your time!

There's a penetrating chill to 'WORKTAPES' that feels as if all the air's been sucked out the room. SDEM manipulates his landscape with a keen, well-trained ear: each track sounds as if it's following the same cryptic logic, a sonic topography built around an obsessively defined set of sounds; glassy and expertly sculpted. It's wormlike computer music in the mode of classic Ae in the dark, with weightless half-melodies floating across loping, industrial rhythms.

'18.5.22' revolves around undulating subs, a slow pulsing hip-hop beat and a lattice of wiry synths, while 'ZIRK2' picks up Atlanta's percussive trills, trunk rattling, overdriven 909 kicks and leads, abstracting the elements beyond recognition. A sleazy club banger, stripped for parts.

Knapp's most hypnagogic, long-form tracks retain their momentum too; ‘ES19' is a thick fog of whirring machines and frozen soundscapes, while bass-heavy kicks and skittering percussion keep things moving. 'THERMO FADE', the album's closing track, threatens to collapse at any moment, all wooshed stabs and ghostly synths imposing motion on inert objects, before succumbing to a full noise blow-out.

if yr gonna do this sorta thing, do it this well, or don’t bother eh?

Norman Records :

Deep treading sci-fi b-boy jams from SDEM (Skam / Opal Tapes / CPU / Seagrave). Elliptical funk, hardware rhythm-box clatter and liquid synth matter…many angled variations on themes extruded from recent live work. A 2022 digital-only release now manifests as physical matter, perfectly suited to cassette fidelity.

credits

released December 2, 2022

SOUNDS BY SDEM
ART BY SVVN

license

about

SDEM UK

ultimate cakes n sweets

shows

Jun 6

Wharf Chambers

Leeds, UK

discography

STEM

Feb 2023
WORKTAPES

Dec 2022
SYNCAV

Oct 2021
DELOC

Oct 2019

more releases...

contact / help

Contact SDEM

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like SDEM, you may also like:

Index Hole
by SDEM

supported by 42 fans who also own “WORKTAPES”

Only nine left of this beauty! You know what to do! Paolo ME
go to album
JNSN CODE GL16 / spl47
by Autechre

supported by 41 fans who also own “WORKTAPES”

Autechre at their weirdest and most banging. Super Super Sounds
go to album
Unique Technologies
by Various Artists

These five giddy, bass-heavy dance tracks mark the label Fast Castle’s first foray into vinyl. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 22, 2021
go to album
BLOOM
by SKYGAZE

featured on Bandcamp Radio Jan 21, 2020
go to album
Mosaïc (EP)
by LIL FISH

Ethnic sounds meet urban beats in this sharply rhythmic record from rising French beatmaker LiL FiSH. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 9, 2018
go to album
Sheer Hellish Miasma
by Kevin Drumm

supported by 37 fans who also own “WORKTAPES”

inferno is unquestionably the best, most uncompromising noise track ever imagined and brought to life avery
go to album
Bewilderment
by William Fields

supported by 37 fans who also own “WORKTAPES”
go to album