Eaux - i [EP stream]

When an EP opens with a track that’s seven minutes long and features only one, monosyllabic lyric, chances are it’s an EP that’s more concerned with its own evolutionary process than it is with how you feel about it. But ‘i’, the debut EP from experimental electronic trio Eaux, manages to win its listener over anyway.

Over the course of its first seven minutes, ‘i’ oscillates between lightness and gloom, making full-ranged use of the minimalistic synths and gliding vocals that are as evocative as they are sparse. Things only get better from there; New Peaks is elegant and uplifting, and Snow crackles with all the icy freshness of its namesake.

Formed over the course of a few days of improvisation, the EP as a whole is as crystalline and as unique as the archetypal snowflake itself – there are ingenious flourishes of inspiration, melodies so delicate they feel like they’d melt to the touch and a hypothermic sense of warmth in all its frosty open spaces. All this proves that it’s the evolutionary process itself that actually makes this record so engaging (rather than alienating) for its listener, as the experimental newness of each sound rings through, giving it an innovative sparkle.

Stream ‘i’ in full below, and purchase the EP next week when it’s released on Morning Ritual Recordings.