From Tom Millar Sent Tue, Jul 13th 1999, 17:48
From Tom Millar Sent Tue, Jul 13th 1999, 17:48
I'll take care of these first. More coming soon on some less freshly pressed stuff that I just picked up... Autechre: EP7 Nothing INTD 90999 Yippee! LP5 had a bunch of meaningless-feeling dick slap tracks crammed in between the keepers, whereas this EP seems about the same length and only has one or two songs that make me reach for the skip button. Ae seem to still be in awe of the Sonic Decimator plugin, while I'm afraid my infatuation has passed (actually, I can't be sure I was ever in love with it as much as some are). The best tracks, according to my ear, are those where the Robs abandon blatant digital remanip in favor of honest songwriting, like "Maphive 6.1" and a couple of others that don't come to mind just yet. "Ccec" bears more than a passing resemblance to Orbital's "I wish I had duck feet". Somehow I never saw myself or anybody else making comments relating Orbital and Ae tracks, but there it is. Listen to the two and see what I mean. Fucked up ringmaster rambling- check. Moody, simple bassline/melody- check. Plodding beat- check. Speaking of beats, I kept looking for a decent one on the last album (maybe it was only included on the Japanese pressing?) but it appears that Ae were saving all of them for the next release, 'cause here they are. They plod and squawk in necessary Ae fashion- though I wish they'd give up on machine spitting noises and bottle/spoon taps for everything. I'm overall much more satisfied with this their last two albums, even if it is technically an EP. If nothing else it's at least more accessible (I don't have to be in Active Autechre Listening Mode to sit down and enjoy it) and on several levels it recalls older, less abrasive days (of course, that doesn't mean it's not fucked up). Plaid: Rest Proof Clockwork Nothing INTD 90998 Plaid was commissioned shortly after their album "Not For Threes" to write theme and incidental music for the short-lived public television show "Remember Those Monkeys?". "Remember Those Monkeys" was a docu-drama, not unlike MTV's The Real World, dealing with the lives of all the monkeys and various other animals sent into orbit during the intense spacefaring race between the U.S and Russia. Unfortunately, after the tracks had been laid down, the producers of the show discovered that the monkeys et al. had actually died during their various missions and the project was canceled due to a footage shortage. The music was later suggested as an appropriate score for the A&E biography of Pino Pomo, the longtime champion of the Robot World Cup and the prototype for Sony's recently unveiled computerized pet dog. When Sony refused to let the films be released on the grounds that they contained confidential technical details, the biography was scuttled and Plaid were again left with a bunch of inspired recordings and no way to release them. Then the left head of Plaid realized that they were still on contract with Warp Records of the UK, and as a last resort the tracks were used to complete their next album. The two-headed Plaid free-associated various relevant terms until a functional title was formulated, and millions of IDM fanboys all over the world simultaneuosly creamed their jocks. Me included. This is a great record. Surgeon: Force & Form Tresor 117 One of the songs on this album is called "Black Jackal Throwbacks." Say it out loud. Again. And that's one out of four, too- four tracks, forty minutes total. I would say that this shouldn't count as an album based on that, but damn! Anthony Child can kick your ass any day of the week. He's such a stone cold hard techno mastermind he leaves everybody else in the dust when he gets down to business. Minimal beats, meet your biological dad. Where Johannes Heil or Crank or any of another million sonically similar-minded guys might play with the same noises, Surgeon makes them work again and again with no time for wankiness. I suppose if I had to come up with one word for what Surgeon does with music, it would have to be "distillation." I've had nothing but respect for this guy since I first heard his remix of Mogwai's "Fear Satan", which is still my favorite beatless track to date by anybody. This album is no exception. Pow, techno in your brain. Hyperbole just comes naturally when I talk about this guy... I'm not sure whether that's just a sign of how good he is or that I shouldn't even try to describe it. I quit. Next: 808 State reissue, Lol Hammond vs. Roger Eno, Electro UK Version 1. No, really! Tom