From Tom Millar Sent Thu, Jun 24th 1999, 21:19
From Tom Millar Sent Thu, Jun 24th 1999, 21:19
Just three this time, IDM listmember reviews coming as soon as they forward the Dated comp to my current address... Theorem: Ion M-nus th5cd This CD combines nearly every take on minimal techno I've heard from CR-style to the Japanese Sublime square-wave addiction to the original Detroit strings & 909 framework. Fascinating in its craftsmanship. Like most music in this style, it's not particularly surprising, but anybody who listens to minimal techno for novelty needs to have their head examined anyway. Loops carry on ad infinitum like white dashes on the highway while Dale Lawrence adds just a bit here and there until you get home. No landmarks, no exit ramps, just a huge all-encompassing road atlas of every trip you've ever taken. Or, if you prefer, like a majestic throne room or the vacuum of space- all the rich embossed gold monuments and the shining nebulae just serve to remind you of how astounding the sheer emptiness is in between. An absolute must-have; Featureless Platinum Cylinder winner for best smooth techno this year. Fluxion: Vibrant Forms Chain Reaction CRD-07 A friend told me this was psychotically repetitive. It's on CR, dumbass, what did you expect? Somewhere between Porter Ricks' evil dementia and Substance's slightly happier dementia. Headnodding bad-posture fun for the whole family. Another one of those chain-smoking records in the sense that there's nothing in it for you until the next reoccurence of the same experience you had last time around (mental note- may have just discovered significance of label name). If you like CR, get this, it's goody good. If you can't stand that heroin house 4/4 trash, buy it and go to school already. Bogdan Raczynski: Samurai Math Beats Rephlex CAT 085 CD Once again proving to the world that they alone among the seven largest labels in the world are unafraid to sign truly demented and unrestrained wankers, Rephlex has put out the seoncd in the three-album series by new find Bogdan Raczynski (Hey, his name's Bogdan Raczynski!) Bogdan's revolutionary, unheard-of production style (he uses a computer) makes his music some of the freshest ever pressed. Several of the rhythms are composed of sounds not normally found on drum machines! Some might think this is already a step too far down that road we call madness, but Bogdan goes further still. On the first track, taking "techno" music into new territory, he adds his own unenthused, tuneless vox to the mix for a truly uplifting pop experience. If you ever thought about putting those "kabooosh" explosion sounds you used to make while playing with your action figures as a kid in the breakdown of a track, well, Bogdan's beat you to it. This man is truly the future personified- on several tracks he pitches his voice into the sky for a "chipmunks" effect, putting a childlike spin on tunes which obviously are unfit for ears under the age of 18. All these amazingly fresh tricks which nobody else has ever tried or probably even thought of really make for a great record all around- remember, innovation is key! And I'm still listening to that Boom Boom Satellites record. Beats Orbital hands down. (even with those TRUMPETS in it). Tom