Call Super: Arpo review – outstanding after-hours techno

Behind the decks, Joe Seaton, AKA Call Super, mixes up a cosmopolitan blend of techno and house, but his own productions are pitched at those dissonant, poignant moments after the night has ended, when you’re wandering home past people off to Parkrun and Sainsbury’s. There are pulses, but they shift on their foundations; No Wonder We Go Under has a Larry Heard-style house bassline, but the lack of a heavy onbeat sends it drifting into the beyond. Frequent appearances of a quavering clarinet, hardly rave culture’s go-to instrument, further enhance the very particular beauty of his vision, which, a little like Laurel Halo or his recent collaborator Beatrice Dillon, comes at dub techno with a jazz arranger’s mindset. And while “chillout” music is often abominably unthreatening, Seaton’s has a tinge of anxiety, particularly on standout Out to Rust, where held clarinet notes clamour and fret through the funk.