(idm) reviews

From cl
Sent Wed, Sep 1st 1999, 01:32

quick reviews of 3 new releases.  

mika vainio-ydin
mika goes ambient here, nary a beat except an occassional echoed,distorted
bass drum.  moves away from the sine waves and coldness usually associated
with panasonic and his other solo work.  warm, but very dark for the most
part. lots of very low rumblings across the 74 minutes of this cd.  not
unlike the ambient- isolationism 2xcd on virgin or some broken machinery.
(its the first release on wavetrap)

20 to 2000
scanner
not being too familiar with mr rimbaud, i was expecting a 20 minute
excerpt of a phone call, but not really any samples to find except a an
infrequent middle-eastern sounding guy that would be at home on an orb or
fsol single.  anyway, its one track moving slowly until a tick and a kick
drum come in around 10 min.  it continues plodding along and then a hi-hat
comes in and it starts to sound pretty brinkmann-esque. about as laid back
as possible with a beat.  nice to have if you are getting all of them, but
if you are picking and choosing, there might be a couple of others to look
for first.

monolake  gobi the desert ep
monolake03
shimmering, crackling, crisp, booming.  if you sleep with the windows open
and are near crickets, this will blend in perfectly.  there is is a
variety of chirping throughout the one track36 minute disc, along with
some serious bass.  the bass hits are far enough apart that i think this
would qualify as ambient, but with all the foreground movement and shifts,
it certainly isnt boring.  if you have and like interstate, this is a
definite winner and if you dont then you have something new to go buy.

dont listen to all 3 of these discs in the same day if you need to 
concentrate on anything.

cl