Monophace - Cinemascope

I've found myself many times realizing that this is my most favourite drum 'n bass album... maybe ever. Yes, among all that amen break craze, then the metalheadz dark sounds, then the organic trends brought by 4 hero, and then the liquid stuff... this is still the album that I find groovy and fascinating from beginning to end, whose rhythm progression I enjoy most, whose melody I dig most.

Why is that? The men behind Clubsessel, Niederflur, Misc. and Van Delta play here their glitchy sounds in a drum 'n bass context but keeping all the style tricks in its most Good Looking Records style. The melodies are in the same fashion, but the sound tricks give them a surprising interest to a tired-and-true style of composition. This means that you have a huge bass for every track, yes, but the rhythm patterns are more complex than usual, with lots of microhouse tricks (a click there, a chop here), not so present than in their following album "Random Factor" (which IMHO is a bit worse) but still necessary to give an intriguing feel to passages like the fantastic "The Ever Present Past". Everything is "synthetic" (the label name, "Precision Breakbeat", described its releases perfectly), and the highest and lowest frequencies blend together in 11 monster tunes. Still sounding like very few things before or after, I think that this is THE neglected masterpiece of the subgenre, and the best thing this talented pair has ever released. Not only recommended: mandatory.