Genre: Electronica
Ok, here's a band (As it happens, one of my favorites and the single largest influence on my own work) that many people haven't heard of; anybody that saw the first Mortal Kombat film or Mean Girls will have heard their most recognizable hit, Halcyon, but i choose not to review that album, as it (The album) isn't a good example of where they ended up going.
The album is dominated by underlying ecological refrences, although only one of the tracks has lyrics (and they're in Norwegian, oddly enough). The interesting thing is that they manage to get all of their main points across relatively well in spite of this. The most remarkable thing is that nearly everything in the track is designed to set you up for the next track, showing a remarkable ammount of forethought and care.
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The album opens with strange whumping noises as the intro to The Girl With the Sun in Her Head, in my opinion one of the greatest works in the genre. Despite the fact that there is a bit of repetition, the arrangement of the material is almost constantly being variated, building up into massive textures that one can quite easily get lost in. There is also a particularly interesting moog-like synth solo towards the 2/3 mark, complete with large, enveloped vibrato that creates a remarkable effect.
P.E.T.R.O.L heads in a completely different direction, with a much faster tempo, lots of flanging, a distinctly agitated tone, and a generaly 'dirty' sound about it. The texture here, too, is quite dense in places.
And then the album produces the perfect follow-up to this with The Box, a track immense enough that they had to break it into two halves. The first is a very, very minimalist, down-tempo track featuring several layered riffs of synthisized (but not obviously so) bells, chiming through arpegios and melodies alongside a low, droning bass and an interesting, if sparse, drum loop. The second half somehow manages to seguay flawlessly between this and the frantic, pulse-pounding second half with astounding ease. Part two compliments part one perfectly be being almost its polar opposite, with lots of harsh synth work, a snare that sounds like it's made out of solid steel, and a generally much more agressive vibe.
Following this is a track that is almost as fast, but not nearly as agressive; Dur Budr is a very evocative piece, producing rolling soundscapes of smooth, beautiful tambres with its low pads and surreal vocal lines. Towards the end the track becomes fragmented and angular, using the vocal samples in much smaller bits and pieces, in order to bring the listener to the last three works on the album.
Adnan's somehow manages to throw the listener for a loop not once, but twice, with its intro (I won't say precicely how, suffice it to say that it's clever). This track is also fairly evocative, though the effects are not nearly as strong as in the previous track. This one is the only one that manages to get repetitive, though that may be in part to pave the way for the finale.
Out There Somewhere? is like The Box in that it has two markedly different halves. The first is an eclectic, dark collage of sounds, rythms, and strange harmonies, and like the first half of the Box, is somewhat minimalistic in its textures. The feeling is quite fragmented, as though the entire thing was made out of parts that were intentionally designed not to fit together. However, on hearing the second half, it becomes why this is: the fragmented nature and dark feeling only serve to make it that much more refreshing when the track shifts to its second half, akin to the album's beginings with its lush, full textures and delightful harmonic progressions. And yet despite this and the fact that it makes the deranged feeling of the first half decidedly up-beat it still keeps the spacy vibe, and feels as though it does, in fact, belong with its beginning.
Bottom line, this is probably one of the single best albums you've ever heard. Everyone that I've played this album for has loved it, which is why i pass the word on to you. I highly recomend this album if:
-You like Electronica,
-you think that the above means the same thing as liking Techno,
-You listen to a lot of Chemical Brothers/Crystal Method
-You still think Daft Punk is cool (You poor, poor fools, you)
-You heard Halcyon + On + On on the Mortal Kombat/Mean Girls sound track and liked it (It was the one with the breathy vocals, minimal piano part, and standard thumping Dance drums).
And if you buy this album and like it, please, please PLEASE tell others you know about it, because it's a dirty shame that so many people haven't even heard of these guys.
