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Soft Circle is the current solo project of percussionist Hisham Bharoocha, perhaps better known as the cofounder and long-time drummer of Black Dice. He left that band a few years ago and seemed to take their sense of focus with him; their carefully measured excursions into abstract, swirling noise over deep, almost tribal grooves devolved into a kind of formless chaos. And Bharoocha’s debut as Soft Circle, Full Bloom—released earlier this year on Scott Herren’s Eastern Developments—features the sort of hypnotic, drum-driven, meditative ruckus you no longer get from Black Dice. Bharoocha sings wordlessly, using all of his limbs on his kit while controlling a guitar and synthesizers through various electronic triggers. I’m not sure how he does it. More recently, he was instrumental in the staging of the Boredoms’ 77-drummer opus, 77BoaDrum.
Today’s playlist:
