1 January, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England; piano), Christian Townsley (guitar) and Lee Hooper (b. 11 November 1971, Bristol, Avon, England; double bass) with, latterly, Matt Robson (b. 10 September 1973, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England; drums/digital programming), take their name from a Polish mathematician and number theorist whose research has been used in music creation, although they also say the unusual moniker is ‘very pretty to read’. Combining the flexibility and level of manipulation of the digital studio with the richness and physicality of live instruments, the Leeds, England-based collaborators forge a music that recalls the charming and melancholic music of Movietone, Bark Psychosis and, most explicitly, the northern romanticism of Hood (to whom Robson is a sometime collaborator). Sierpinski juxtapose their pretty melodies against fracturing, stuttering and treated audio signals or glitches. ‘The resonance of the glitch’, Robson explains, ‘lies in the way that accidental mistakes that a third party ? such as computer software or hardware ? brings in become re-appropriated by the musician.’ Setting acoustic against electronic principles, this seemingly dichotomous music might be expected to be abrasive and jarring but is, in fact, cohesive and mellifluous. Echoing the title of their 2002 debut, This Geography Of Ours, the band embellish their music with found sounds sampled from their local geography: a rare vocal was actually a spoken-word recording of Loughran’s father, an English teacher at a nearby school while the instrumental ‘Liegnitz’ was named after an inscription on a piano in Robson’s front room that was used to record the track. Robson also, notably, records under the moniker of Random Number, a solo project that nevertheless shares similar themes/aesthetics to his collaboration with Loughran, Townsley and Hooper.