Avant-trio Niagara trade in briny chamber techno and thizzing, dreamlike synth work »Catedral Gótica«.

Since one of Príncipe’s earliest catalogue numbers, Niagara’s trio of Alberto Arruda, António Arruda and Sara Eckerson have become the label’s most reliable outliers of style and pattern, shapeshifting between poles of avant dance and experimental electronics. »Catedral Gótica«, as the name suggests, depicts them fraught with a sort of macabre gloom across seven parts that spell out a short story-type narrative arc, from the psychotomimetic keys and hammering techno kick of »Estação e Torres« through the gill-breathing, subaquatic scenario of »Rua do Século«, subtly betraying an implied reference point in their native Atlantic coast.

»Catedral Gótica« is a full-spectrum display of what separates Niagara from the crowd. They instinctively trample down a crazed line of Jamal Moss-via-Downwards ChiBrum techno in »C. 00«, into a damp patch of what sounds like a particularly grainy, bittersweet Actress in the dream-textured architecture of »Springfield, Ma.«, while swimming similar currents to Spencer Clark’s saturated psychedelia on »Novo Século«. And it only gets better in the final part of the tale, where they swoon into vaporised early ’90s electronica redolent of Detroit Escalator Company on »Lua«, and a superb piece of concrète avant-electro shaped from deliciously deliquescent tones and skeletal rhythmic friction on »Gaivotas«.