Digitalis - The Third State

Seb Taylor, probably more well know as Shakta, gives us a full album's worth of his more stripped down, breaks laden creations under the name Digitalis. One of Matsuri's excursions off the beaten psy-path, this album is a must get for fans of the far too short lived psy-breaks movement (ala 21-3 Records, which Digitalis also released on). Fans of Seb Taylor's multitude of projects will also find a lot to like in The Third State.

While there is a strong breaks element in the Digitalis work, like all good albums, the tracks vary widely in vibe, some are slower (No Analysis), others are more straight up breaks (What Else U Got?), others are more straight up (Figments of Reality). All of it drips with Seb Taylor's style. Osho Drums is a particular highlight featuring the drumming of Osho, one half of the excellent, but unknown out of Japan, duo Uni. Figments of Reality has some nice distorted sounds and the most four to the floor track on this album, although very different from a Shakta track. The Funkopath remix of the previous track is, not surprisingly, funky. It builds slowly and evetually kicks in, although not to the extant I wish it would. The Clone Mix of Repeater starts off a little weak, but eventually works into some nice with some nice Taylor distorted lines and eventually developes into a groovy little four/floor stomper.

Overall, with the expection of the Funkpath remix of Figments of Reality, this is yet another solid quality release from Matsuri and Seb Taylor. Some of the tracks might be difficult for a pure psy-dj to work into his sets, but for the more creative dj, as well as the general listener, there is plenty of sonic meat to chew on.