Lien Communiations 'Matica'. Skool Records

Tracklist and MP3s (edits)
1. bar Polar
2. unlikely beginning
3. part 1 - Lienation (edit)
4. part 2 -v404 cygni
5. 1215am 2010
6. mirablau
7. looseit
8. subsonic accretion
9, plenitude dub
10. ab & c
11. last generation

NME Review
Smoke hangs heavy in the air, obscuring vision and making it unclear whether there's actually a band somewhere. There are sounds here, yes, but they seem too perfect to be the product of flesh and blood. In truth, Lien are a duo, creating lush electronica through synths and heavily FX-ed guitar and signed to the nascent Skool Records (soon to release an album by the excellent Gwei-Lo side project Mouse Finding the Key). Like Boards of Canada, Lien are rustic futurists, swerving the urban for the pastoral idyll. If they occasionally drift into the territory of wind-powered sound systems, they always swing back to a more satisfying blend of Sigur Ros guitars and leafy ambience, every now and then touching back down to Earth to move bass and beats in the direction of "The Contino Sessions". Sure, when the dry ice clears, Lien aren't the most visual live act, huddled in the corner of this club back room like shy, stoned schoolchildren. Yet the evening's mishaps, both technical (the planned projections fail to materialise) and rather more human (label impresario John insists on shouting for Slayer covers and "more bass"), only lend credence to the possibility that Skool may yet emulate the esoteric sensibilities of the amiably ramshackle Twisted Nerve and Rephlex labels. Fingers - and synapses - crossed. Olly Thomas

Southscene Review
Lien are the kind of band that come along every so often and help reinstall your faith in music. To try and define their music would be futile, part ambient ramblings, part dance, part indie, the list is endless. Film score music would be a better analogy. Like a mixture between the Vangelis score from Blade Runner crossed with the Dust Brothers score for Fight Club. At loud volume this music sucks you in and engrosses you (whether stoned or not!) and at low volume is suitable music to have on whilst engaging in conversation. Really, this music shouldn't work. It has definable structure and no stand-out grooves or riffs and yet it works so well. You know this is not just mindless tinkering with grooveboxes and noodling guitar and yet really that's what it is! Oh forget it! Just get hold of a copy anyway and you can revel in the beauty that is Lien.

Unibuzz Review
Lien's debut release on the Southampton-based Skool Records label is a welcome follow-up to last year's highly-rated opener by label-mates Mouse Finding The Key. Displaying a similar mastery of melodic craft, but a completely different approach to instrumentation, Lien gleefully eschew all notions of musical boundaries, and repaint the map with expansive washes of techicoloured noise. Psychedelicate breakbeats and guitars collide with all manner of synthetic soundforms; seemingly disparate elements, both organic and artificial, are deftly combined to create the Lien hybrid. 'Bar Pola' encapsulates this ethos, effortlessly intercutting ambient interludes with zig-zagging beats, while the sublime guitar spirals of 'Unlikely Beginning' calm the speeding breakbeats and buzzing brass. The twisted voicings of 'Lienation' give way to the expansive grin of 'V404 Cygni', with its mile-wide chords and cloudscape piano; sonic ideas zoom past almost bumber-to-bumper, and yet Lien always have more in the tank. '12:15am - 2010' and 'Mirablau' provide possibly the best moments on the album, exemplifying the band's approach to melodic and experimental design. Lien often indicate left and then turn right, just to lose any pursuers who think they know what music is all about. If you still think you know how a track should go together, they'll reverse over you and escape down a one-way street, against the flow of traffic, utilising the pavement when necessary. Catch them if you can.