Pressed And is the collaborative project between Mat Jones and Andrew Hamlet. Stone Candles is the duo’s third release, after 2011’s Imbue Up and 2012’s Hyper Thistle EP, and represents a brilliant introduction to the band’s strange marriage of the organic and the electronic. It is also quite comfortably their most mature record to date.
Stone Candles is eclectic and experimental and therefore very difficult to categorize. The band use a cacophony of guitars, synths, looped samples and strings to create their own unique take on electronic music, an approach which has influences from r&b and hip hop to pysch folk and bedroom pop. It is to the band’s credit that this fusion of influence and genre never feels forced or jarring, the album feels complete and flows very nicely.
The album is out now on Mush Records, get it from their website, where the album is also streaming in full. You can also get it from the Pressed And Bandcamp.