Kabuki ‎– Signal To Noise

This is one of those albums I always come across when browsing through a second hand store, which could be kind of rare being an album with crossover potential from the very good producers Kabuki and Mainframe. So, after the dark Makai albums (both very good if you ask me) and the jazzy Megashira ones (not quite as satisfactory), here there is a collection of songs which are their sunniest and most positive production ever. Starting with the beautiful Transworld (yes, another samba turned into drum n bass, but mixing organic instruments in the most natural way possible), and continuing with a remix of Vikter Duplaix' "Manhood", the album peaks with a Cleveland Watkiss collaboration - as usual, Cleveland Watkiss has the ability to work on the best songs of the album he contributes to, or maybe he turns them on the best songs... -. From then on, a mix of styles, mostly gentle broken beat/breakbeat that sound like Somatik productions. A beautiful hip hop production in "Implant" and, again, a gorgeous Cleveland Watkiss contribution in "After the Fire", stand above the slightly formulary rest of the songs. And that's the problem of the album: this is one of those that is uniformly well produced, which hasn't a flaw, but which isn't powerful enough to last until the last drum n bass songs.

Then I think to myself that this is just a tracking problem: you cannot slow an album so much at the half of it and then throw the topical dnb productions at the end. That way, this sounds more like a patchy collection of singles than an album of some memorable songs and productions that work better outside of it. Despite all of this, very recommended.