From Aran M. Parillo Sent Mon, Oct 13th 1997, 04:47
okay, so as much as I like advice about what to buy, I also *very* much appreciate those "you know I thought this was going to bust bhoomily, but it's kindof flat" points of view. I mean, we are all familiar with the phenomena, you're following a name or artist (most often label) and realize once you get caught up in the careful listening department, that the last few things they put out turn out to be the least inspired...or at least missing the sweetspots which turned your ears in their outset. One recent 2x12" which illustrates that point well is the !K7 Vinyl2000/Electrecord compilation. This tracklist reads out like a veritable who's who of innovation on the dynamics of floormoving freaked funk (third electric, artificial material, invisible man, synapse) yet the conversations here trail off into, dare I say boring areas of repeticism...leaving me feeling...uneasy. Chasing the tail of Electrecord faster, I have found their last two releases crinkling my nose and tightening my eye lids as they serve up: ER800 - Weatherforcast/Lystorin/Love,Pain,Extasy - Klys-Tron Three tracks of way minimal drum box and way played out here and there techno squirts and monotonous synth lines. This record has been found dangerously close to my "For Sale" pile in recent days. ER700 - B-Vision/Bonus/Sector 17 - Funktaxi (BolzBolz) Ok, this is only 1/2 bad which pains achingly in the wake of some wicked stuff on labels I mentioned on EB and 313 (ie Ersatz Audio) earlier today (check the forcefield site later for the rebroadcast). Sector 17 suffers from the same aforementioned way too minimal drum box (where's the beef!) with not enough guts and too much "cool techno noise" lard filling. B-Vision perks up the mix a bit with a 303 line and slightly more progressive programming and a vocoded in tune vocal chiming along with nice gliding pads. Bonus free jams a bit of tribal weirdness. Okay, maybe this one is a bit more worth holding onto, and perhaps if it was a Guidance record or something I would be a whole lot less critical of it. What was I talking about? ;-) Teep NP: a hunk of suction I'm loving next in line for the doctors umbelical textcut