5 out of 5

Label: WéMè Records

Produced by: Aelfric Michael Avery (tracks compiled by)

Enigmatically evolving on some alternate IDM timeline, Jodey Kendrick – operating under a dozen of aliases – seemed to have entered the scene and started proliferating it with acid jams around the same time as Richard D. James and the Rephlex crew, and yet Kendrick doesn’t seem to get the same level of reference as those label / scene stewards – despite arguably doing just as much in terms of creative and worthwhile output, and with similar influences.

Of course, this is from my very Rephlex-centric point of view, which means I wouldn’t hear about J.K. until the timelines converged in the late 00s, and he appeared on Rephlex, but I’m positive those in the know knew, what boss Frederic of WeMe apparently knew, sticking with Kendrick for several releases on his imprint through the 2010s and beyond.

…Including this rerelease of Jodey’s first under the +10 moniker (apparently a tribute to 808 State’s 10×10), from 2007.

Despite claiming to mature his music without paying much mine to RDJ, obviously by this time, lack of exposure to it would’ve been impossible. Still, unlike the legion of IDMers in the grand Aphex / Rephlex wake trying to mimic that, Kendrick was a contemporary, just on his own terms. And so Grace, to me, sounds like a demo tape of sorts for his eventual Rephlex albums, apparently culled from a bundle of tracks. Not a demo in a rough sense, but more like – I hear what y’all are doing, and here’s my way of doing it.

The result is stunning: boiled down, distilled Aphex and Squarepusher and u-Ziq and all else, injected with J.K.’s penchant / adoration for club-ready acid beats. Again – my narrow point of view: J.K. has played with all genres, but that’s a throughline I tend to hear in what I’ve sampled – a kind of aggressiveness borne out of the classic house that presumably (or mentioned in that interview) inspired the artist, dialed up to 10. And, frankly, that’s often been a little too showy and loud for me, making for blast beats that are impressive, but also quite repetitive.

But with my madeup demo tape narrative, Kendrick funnels all of that energy into delivering a set that’s incredibly varied, but then also linked by its momentum; hitting the BPMs hard as ever, but with enough room to breathe. And whenever things near stalling, or going off the rails, Kendrick will peel back, “resting” on the funkiest bassline. The sequencing is the best part, taking us on a tour of heart-attack drill beats that smoothe out into Squarepusher-tinged jazz-funk with touches of grime; chilling out for some Aphex On-era ambience – if that track was backed by a thick bassline boogie – and then capping off the record with comparatively minimal experimentations: IDM of the “modern” age. And if our opener was a drillcore mic drop, so goes closer Sarangot for abstraction, proving how far Kendrick can stretch the sounds of Grace without losing the thread of the album, or, indeed, the beat.

While I can’t compare to the quality of the original version, the WeMe rerelease sounds so good; deep and immediate. The original apparently also had an extra track which doesn’t appear here, but Grace feels complete as-is, every track a necessity.