KMC - Orbiting Probes / Alpha Centauri

Label:
Catalog#:
720 006
Format:
Vinyl, 12"
Country:
UK
Released:
1998
Genre:
Electronic
Style:
Drum n Bass

Tracklist

A   Orbiting Probes 10:52
AA   Alpha Centauri 8:37

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Reviews & Discussion

Rated 5/5
Review by veers Jan 03, 2006 (edited over 4 years ago)
This single was and remains something unique.
For the intelligent and atmo concept here reaches heights of enlighting beauty and contemplative deepness, crossing genres, crossing boundaries between d'n'b and pure "space music".
Here are two musical like of the panoramic views of cosmos from the movie "2001, a Space Odyssey" for instance.
It's also probably the best tracks ever by KMC (among his released works I mean).
By now it would certainly not be the thing people go mad for and wonder why...?Because it's not pre-chewn sonic porridge fitting the d'n'b standards in fashion!
It's just serious musical bliss, conceived by a man ahead of many times...

"Alpha Centauri" opens with the burst of several sounds'layers (some key motifs like unknown birds'songs, majestic sustaining chords that develop through fx, reaching new notes) with focus on the shrill range (true also of the drums'part where the equalization increases metallic resonances from charley and snare drum).
First the bass seems odd. But when all the elements start floating together, the low line appears organic and futuristic, the swaying subterranean core that will briefly mute in the magical break (as happens too in "Magnetic cloud", unreleased other tune from KMC).

"Orbiting probes" alone is worth tracking down this supernatural single...And here "supernatural" is the word...
You can't believe your ears since the opening loop of faraway choruses evocative of possibly benevolent entities...Oh God!!!
And when the main sustaining chord arises, it's a cosmological horizon.
The unique bass (with something nearly funky in it!Really!) enters after a while to set the warm basis for the ever growing and pulsating ethereal atmosphere, full of chord changes and again focusing on high sounds with the modulated violin melody and, through the break, the harp glissandi.
The rhythm seems superfluous as this masterpiece expands itself out of the d'n'b field to encompass a kind of heavy musical utopia...

Extragalactic legacy.
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Release

Shortcut Code: [r9731]
Data Quality Rating: Correct

Ratings

4.32 / 5 (25 votes)
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