Peripheral Method’s reinvention of the track Runner (a unique take on Don’t Let Me Down) is a six-minute release that sets the bar extraordinarily high for electronic music production right now.
Fusing the dreamlike ambiance of the track’s original energy, with soulful vocal flickers that creatively weave in and out of the mix, the track starts up and slowly but surely envelops the listener in this calmly manic arena of detail and depth.
The intricacies contrast strongly with the general pulse of the beat and the ongoing sense of movement the experience presents. A thick wall of bass-led fuzz works in a similar way to juxtapose the lightness of the voices and the synths, and when this falls back you’re left with the delicacy of the soundscape in its slightly more still or near-natural state.
There’s a smoothness to the journey, but this is strangely and skillfully made up of numerous layers and fragments that tremble around within the mix. Depending on where you are, how you’re feeling, or what you want to get from it – the music can either energize entirely, or calm you to your core and allow for a depth of thought that’s intentional and overwhelming.
While there’s familiarity to each moment – the voice, the samples and sounds, the beat – the whole thing has been structured in a fascinating way. There are unexpected stages to the development of the piece. This leaves you with a decidedly artistic, cinematic audio voyage – one that you can turn to whenever the more predictable parts of contemporary EDM and trip hop grow tiresome. The 2019 remix pours through like a series of waves, each one slightly different to the last, but always made up of this same ocean of sound and thought.
