Seefeel – Quique

A mostly instrumental love letter to texture featuring washes of midrange noise, meditative deepness, ambient spaciousness, rhythmic thumps, and various muffled tidbits, Seefeel’s Quique grows in stature with each passing year. Released on Too Pure in 1993, Seefeel joined a roster that at the time was thriving after issuing essential early work from Stereolab, PJ Harvey, Pram, and others. Quique is a mesmerizing document, one aligns with the sound that peers including My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, and Aphex Twin were exploring at the time. “Plainsong,” which features guitarist Sarah Peacock on vocals, simultaneously suggests ambient, shoegaze, and early techno. “Polyfusion” rumbles like a Portishead or Massive Attack instrumental; “Filter Dub” is a nine-minute bass-heavy jam with warbly, heaving melodic noise flowing through the center. When, halfway through, a hypnotic synth phrase starts looping, the track takes flight. The double-LP version of Quique is hard to find, and expensive when you do track it down. CDs are easier to come by; a 2020 Too Pure double CD reissue called Quique Redux features two previously unreleased tracks and five contemporaneous remixes. – Randall