Electrospy – Brain Coral

Electrospy marked the brief trajectory of Jake Eyre, who in 1994 birthed Voice, a 12’’ composed of two long and hypnotic tech-house excursions, cryptically titled Mix 1 and Mix 2. Tracks sculpted with a kind of primordial mastery, weaving funk-laced detours with the emotional depth of pure tech-soul sensitivity. Over time, the record became a relic for underground initiates, not least thanks to its inclusion in Architecture, the mix CD by Terry Francis, a fervent apostle of British tech-house. After twenty-eight years of eclipse, Jake Eyre resurfaces in 2025 with Brain Coral, released by Palace Trax, the expressive offshoot of London’s Palace Vinyl store. In this long stretch of silence, the producer’s alchemy seems to have lost none of its original luster. The four cuts alternate between visions of metaphysical tech and electro impulses tinged with psychotropic hues, giving rise to a coherent sonic narrative, thick with retro-futurist harmonies and synthetic microdoses of meditation frayed within a rhythmic grammar akin to a cerebral seismograph.

This is a release that, despite its skeletal essentiality, plays with a retro drum programming that doesn’t shy away from colliding with modern tonal scans, nor from the wise use of synths imbued with historical memory—like in Davelec, a peaceful ambient-tech excursion written with Dave Mothersole, a central figure of tech house between the Nineties and the 2000s, in what was arguably its golden age. The EP opens with the syncopated magnetism of NYE-424, which, through broken percussion, finds a solid anchoring point to hurl a vocal sample—more like a stretched-out moan—greatly nestled among infinite rhythmic and harmonic wearied variations. Flaky may be the least incisive track: a synthwave-tech diversion that, thanks to its versatility, can still prove useful for eclectic DJ sets. Choosing a high point isn’t easy, but Electrobum perhaps stands out for a harmonic architecture that radiates with an almost ancestral warmth, evoking a type of sonic allure that feels like emotional imprinting.