Christ. - Blue Shift Emissions.

What a grand way for Benbecula to start a year. A remotely visible aural mist slowly washes over us from the speakers, and fills the room like some strange alien menace!

The elements are beautifully mixed together, reminding us more of Krautrock's bleak rootsy begginings than a Hip-Hop Enya/Tricky pastiche, but isn't it easy to judge either way based on expectation, and what the press tells us!

As similarly abstracted to BOC as this may at first appear there's a soul purpose to this sound that sets it far apart. Listen!

I've always considered Christ's work to be enigmatically unquantifiable, as if his musical message (if, of course, there is one) is not to be found within his quirky melodies, but instead deeply embedded in the very fabric of his composition. Such unfathomableness within one's music might well ostracise some, but for others it serves up an enticing challenge. Lifting the lid on Blue Shift Emissions is an intriguing affair, to say the very least "Stained Century", "Breathe Between Sleep" and "Vernor Vinge" hark back to Christ's halcyon "Pylonesque" days, where as the veil of mystery is lifted, albeit temporarily, on the album's most accessible track, Cordate - a rather simple, but nonetheless memorable, synth-drenched opus. However, the fabulously obscure "Happyfour Twenty" steals the show, at least for me. Now this is a song that's guaranteed to pleasantly befuddle the most ardent of listeners.

When it comes to recording the next album, I would not suggest more of the same, but instead MUCH more!
For now, however, and at the risk of sounding blasphemous, not to mention a smidge corny.... Thank God for Christ!