[Dial]

One must expect a collaboration between Efdemin and RNDM to be a special kind of subtle, and that’s exactly what their Pigon project delivers. On their first release in three years — back on original and spiritual home Dial — they offer both explorations in patience-testing sound design and ultra-hushed deep house, a bewitching EP if you can strain your ears enough to hear it properly.

For their first release of 2011, Pigon have split down the middle between the dance floor and the bedroom, the A1 bravely given over to a beatless synth meander (“Dirty Float”) that blurs and smudges like one of Richard D. James’ early lucid dreams. It’s the kind of four-minute daydream that makes for perfect set opening fodder, particularly with its unexpected foray into noise in the last minute, a subtle jolt that keeps it from turning into new age fluff. The track it shares a side with is almost comically hushed, where the fake vinyl crackle is almost louder than drums that sound like they’re buried under miles of prohibitively muffling dust. Flipping over the record reveals another functional track and another beatless exercise; “Sunrise Industry” is more boisterous than its counterpart but still restrained, a sub-aquatic pulse that bristles in the vacuum-sealed void that defines most of Efdemin’s work, buoyed by dolorous bent strings that alight like burning filaments. Closer “Flip Over Pill” isn’t quite as engaging as “Dirty Float,” more of a sound design experiment than a proper tune, but it rounds off an intriguing and surprisingly daring EP off nicely. Sunrise Industry is home-listening house in the least pejorative way possible, classy, elegant, and intriguingly detailed, but still functional (at least half of it, anyway) to work in the sets of DJs with allegiances to the Dial sound.