From Tom Millar Sent Tue, Jul 6th 1999, 16:48
Well, I tried getting into the Flanger album in the grand old automotive. Didn't work. In fact, upon closer examination, I've figured out for sure why I'm disappointed with the release. Couldn't put my finger on it before, except for a general feeling of sparseness and homogenous-sounding blap. Now I've got it all figured out. WHY I DIDN'T LIKE THE DAMN FLANGER RECORD by Tom Millar Music Appreciation 562 Prof. Fusion Wank 6/7/99 I just ditched a paragraph and a half about how Atom Heart sucks. Make up your own. I will now delve into the specifics. There is subtlety coming out of this album's Digipak ass hole. The problem is that there is nothing else. Subtlety without some sort of big mess on top to differentiate it is nothing to me. Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that subtle factors are relative, not intrinsic to the sounds or styles themselves, and Atom Heart seems to have forgotten this a while back. He bares the intellectually-challenging tidbits to the sunlight for blatant perusal by every listener. If you took all the quarter notes out of Plastikman's "Sickness" and only left in the filter mods and the double-time squirts, it would be a horrible record. Atom Heart has done this w/ Flanger. He and Friedmann put together these time-consuming rhythm section parts that go on for days without repeating themselves and then left them alone. They could have thrown down two or three preset synth patches on top and I would have been happy, but they just left it organ & drums. No matter how many slick and innovative ways you put together one and two, you are still only left with one and two. I got tired of one and two five minutes into the first track and that's more or less it. Fusion references, dub inflections, whatever. They're only there for milliseconds at a time and then it's back to incessant, easily turgeon-ified rhythm tracks. ...bippity click cliiiick clicklick DURMP DADURMP pip ziff ziff click bip... So, whoops. That'll teach me to look forward to collaborative records (yeah, right). Tom