From Greg Earle Sent Wed, Jul 29th 1998, 12:45
From Greg Earle Sent Wed, Jul 29th 1998, 12:45
My ModernMusic ship came in today (thanks PJ!) with the Caustic comp, the new
Ae LP5, and what can only be described as the real sleeper of the lot -
Xyphax's "Time Of The Year" CD on Off Beat. I had heard a Xyphax track on
a German compilation CD I mentioned a while back, and wanted more. Luckily,
PJ knew of an album and came up with the goods. This album is pure IDM all
the way, and of the highest quality throughout ... reference points aren't
easy to place, but he (Lui Kreuger) manages to negotiate a landscape including
older crunchy Aphex, Ae/Gescom, "Arcon 2" style Drum n' Bass, FSOL et al.
without sounding too much like any of them and pulling it off with his own
style. I'm not really good at describing what it sorta vaguely sounds like
(maybe I should send a dup to Lance (-: ), but it's superlative in every way.
There are 11 tracks on the CD with 5 bonus live tracks (recorded in 1996).
Interestingly, the liner notes say "All sounds edited live. No sampling
keyboards used!"
The CD was released sometime last year, and appears to have flown beneath the
radar completely on this list, other than a random query or two about him.
Part of the reason I suspect is that this came out on Off Beat, which is a
German label much better known for Industrial music (16 Volt, Mentallo & The
Fixer, Haujobb, etc.) and Euro releases of well-known North American bands
(Delerium, Skinny Puppy, Doubting Thomas, Front Line, etc. etc.). Thus IMHO
dooming it to undeserved obscurity. If this had come out on MAS or Skam,
you'd have all been creaming in your trousers.
A short blurb on Off Beat's site is at
http://www.offbeatassault.com/xyphax.htm
A review of "Time Of The Year" by an obviously confused Industrialist is at
http://www.bitstorm.net/dachar/reviews/xyphax1.htm
(wherein he uses his familiar signposts and compares parts of it to Scorn
and recent Haujobb; as for the rest of it, he doesn't really know what to do
with it (-: ).
I highly recommend this album if you can find it. Classic IDM in every way.
And speaking of classic IDM ...
OnNow: Caustic Window comp (damn, you folks are missing out on not having
"Popcorn" and "R2D2" on this, though - especially "R2D2", which is
pure Kraftwerkian Electro wonderfulness with all the R2 bleeps & bloops)
- Greg