From Lance C McGannon Sent Tue, Feb 3rd 1998, 07:01
From Lance C McGannon Sent Tue, Feb 3rd 1998, 07:01
I've been slacking on the reviews lately. Here are a few to tide you over in the meantime. . Herbert & Dani Siciliano: Going Round 10" (Phonography) A splendid 1-sided 10" of groovy mid-tempo house with a surprisingly good vocal track by Dani Siciliano. Even though i usually don't like vocals his is now my favorite Herbert release and is well worth the import price for just one track. 8/10 . FBK: Knobs & Switches 12" (Frictional) Columbus, Ohio's Kevin Kennedy aka Sleep Engineer with his first release on Shake's Frictional imprint. Four tracks here, the a1 & b1 are both building minimal tech-house tracks that would be good transitional cuts from minimal techno to tech-house but in my opinion they take too long to build. The a2 is an atmospheric sting-laden track that is beatless aside from about 20 seconds towards then end. And the b2 is pounding gritty basic channel- esque track with lots of filter sweeps and pans but those effects get tiring after a short time. This is a decent 12" but i liked his Sleep Engineer on Xplor much better. This is the first 12" on Frictional that has let me down. 6/10 . The Skinless Brothers: It's the G 12" (Central) The Hi-Lo crew is back in their Skinless Brothers guise with another 12" on their techno-oriented Central label. I was hoping for more ballsy techno like the first Skinless Brothers 12" but instead "It's the G" delivers minimal techno tracks with odd breakbeats instead of driving rhythms. The breakbeats are different on all four tracks but none of them were in the least bit interesting to me. Two of the tracks also throw in some funky basslines giving this 12" more of a fast trip hop sound. I can understand the need to try something new now and then but this is the first Central label experiment that didn't work for me. 5/10 . Epy: Alte Musik Von Morgan 12" (Sabotage) This 12" was a real surprise to me. I decided to listen to an unfamiliar artist and label and was greeted with a delightful 6-track release that varied in style from gritty downtempo electro to crisp drum & bass to spacey ambience to funky breakbeat techno & electronica. The most refreshing thing was how fresh all of the tracks sounded. Fans of Skam, Suction or Schematics should check this one out. I must check out more Sabotage releases if they're all this good. 8/10 . Oliver Kapp: Random Abstract 12" (Indulge) Oliver Kapp with another 12" on his own Indulge label. This one continues in the nice experimental techno sound that he employed on his previous two Indulge 12"s. Five tracks on this one sounding somewhere between anthony shakir and fanon flowers. I liked three out of the five tracks making this 12" a good purchase but it's not quite as good as Oliver's previous Luxury Chair 12". 7/10 . LRS... Syntax CD (Obscure) New Zealand producer Simon Swain here with an impressive cd of deep dubby acid, techno, electronica on his own Obsucre label. Over the twenty tracks on the cd the Syntax sounds vaguely like a dubbed out plastikman or Emmanuel Topp but all tracks still retain a distinct flavor of their own. I have to admit that i never thought that a combination of acidic techno, electronica and heavily reverbed dub would sound good but this cd has proven otherwise. A very enjoyable release. 8/10 BTW: Don't forget our Inaudible netcast every Wednesday from 9-11 pm Eastern Standard Time. Hear John C (Bent Crayon) and I spin two hours of the music we speak so highly of... The show will be accessible by visiting http://www.wcsb.org every Wednesday from 9-11 pm EST. The show will be broad- cast in the AudioActive format (which is actually much better than RealAudio). You can download the Audio Active plugin for free at http://www.audioactive.com/player/ During the Inaudible show we will be giving away promo 12"s and cds so yet another reason to tune in. If you need any more info email us at xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx or xxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx -->-Lance--- p.o. box 450715 westlake, ohio 44145 united states