Proem
About
Of all the acts currently corralled within the American "Intelligent Dance Music" community, Richard Bailey's Proem is perhaps one of the oddest fits with his brand of distorted beats and sombre melodies. Richard has been releasing emotive, ham-fisted electronic music under the pseudonym of "Proem" since the release of Burnplate no.1 on Hydrant records in 1999. Since then, he as released a sizable collection of full lengths, ep's, and various artist appearances for underground electronic labels such as n5md, merck, hymen, and toytronic.
Inspired by dramatic lighting and insomnia, our hero began his journey armed with thrift store record players, some tape (for locked grooves), tape decks, casio sk-5's and a handful of effects. The early recordings focused largely on locked groove drones, harsh noise, mangling and making sound by any means necessary. These experiments, while more textural than tonal, set in motion the murky underpinnings of his later work.. To Bailey, it is "industrial without words" in which "the intensity of death metal" is captured through "geeky electronics." Namedropping comparisons to 90s Autechre, Public Energy-era Speedy J, Amon Tobin and Clark work. But with a catalog of over twenty EPs, LPs and 7" singles, any comparison is temporary. One consistency throughout Proemland is the calculated puzzle that comprises each work.
The job of the listener, even for his dark ambient works, seems to involve a dismantling of each work in the opposite order of its construction--to find the essence or initial muse amid an unpredictable web of rising and failing repetition, scattershot rhythms, voluminous ambience and grinding electronics. A satisfying and steady two decades of musical experimentation. Lets hope for many more to come!
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