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