Mick Harris, Eraldo Bernocchi ‎– Overload Lady

This album of Drum 'n' Bass received some bad flack in reviews, undeservedly I feel. All the right elements are there - mad scattering drum patterns, simple bass ripples, all combined with a subtle Industrial backdrop. Perhaps people felt it shouldn't be as clean as it is (and it has an ice-cool, ice-clear clarity), or perhaps were offended by the genre hopping of these artists. Either way, it has a lot more going for it than people gave it credit for. What I will say is that it's a kind of natural progression, or breakaway, from the more familiar SCORN work Mr. HARRIS is known for. And in many ways it has a much more 'full' sound than latterday SCORN, being ten times as busy, the tempos being supercharged, and all the accompaniments being equally as active. Moods change from Industrial chill to warm and enveloping, all smoothly mixed to sound so easy as to be simple. But the more you listen the more you here. These are long tracks, reminding me a little in approach to the DIVINATION "Akasha" album's 'Rhythm' disc, although less spatial, more urgent in tempo, although there seems to be a comfortable easy about which these tracks fall together. And many of the gaps between percussion barrages make for Industrial Surrealism with hints of Isolationism and Jazz.
And if all that mean't little to you then my Wife Lizzie came in declared that she really liked it, and wanted to dance to it, loved the deep gut level bass noise. So one satisfied customer anyway.

Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.

This record's grubby and harsh sound is typical of Harris' D&B-style releases of the late 90s... "relentless" is a description that comes to mind. And yes, it is a shade repetitive, but I don't think that crafting songs was what Harris and Bernocchi were intending to do here.

Pretty decent frenetic drum 'n' bass/breakbeat stuff. Nice textures in the near-ambient backgrounds, and the drum programming is typically Bernocchi-tight. My only complaint is that the tracks sometimes wear out their welcome and run on longer than they need, making the album a shade repetitive. Overall, though, a very solid release.