Labels: Warp
Review by: Andy Malcolm
You mean you haven’t acquired this 12″ slab of pale blue vinyl delight yet? Shame on you! Everybody loves this record, everybody. Well, about 7 people I know anyway. Even arch melodic-hardcore lover, Collective’s very own Ian Cavell, thinks this record is the shit. But maybe that’s just because he smokes the dope.
Anyway, I’d have a hard time describing this music, as I am not totally sure what it is. Ambient, laid back, chilled, electronica”¦ I mean, it doesn’t sound like Tortoise, but if you like Tortoise, you’d like this. It’s for late night sessions, writing, gaming, smoking, drinking, maybe even fucking. I’ve not tried it. Volunteers? I thought not.
Opening track is “Kid For Today” and it just floats around with a repetetive beat underlying the simple keyboard structure, and some kind of wind noise just lingering in background. Other ambient noises twitter onto the scene here and there, adding to the atmosphere. The opener is a bit special.
After that we have “Amo Bishop Roden”, which is more of the same. As are all 4 songs really. Fuck. How on earth am I supposed to describe it? If you like chilled out late night music, that is electronic, then you will love it. Even if you don’t, you will still love it, because, as I said before, everyone in the whole world does. Two more songs on the other side, first is the title track, which drifts a long smoothly, sprinkling in samples of children laughing and other stuff. It relies on the programmed drum beats to drag you in and then steals your mind in some rather clever fashion. Goodness. Everything ends on the sombre feeling “Zoetrope”, using synths and rising and falling electronic sounds to create a very different atmosphere to the rest of the record. Sad sounding.
Anyway. Just get it.
Also, they have a really annoying website.