Here we go with another Pub release. The final disc of the 4xCD Sekatuo Ton release was the only one worth listening to. Sunrise, Contigo, Crush and so on, all sound like outtakes from Pantomime. Inferior ones, at that, but pleasant enough with those Pub trademark heavily filtered, warm analogue melodies that sound distant and hazy. But this was done much MUCH better on Pantomime.

No, my real problem with this release is the rest of it. Take the dark atmospherics from Liltmor and Legless, and don't add any beats: you're left with tracks like Magda Tunnel, 13th Note, Pea Souper and The Tides. These are pure soundscapes, not even music. So I can't even comment on them! If you like soundscapes, deeply experimental electronics, and modern "laptop" sound design, you may find something likeable in The Sekatuo Ton. But much of this isn't even music. The days of Summer and Pantomime are very much gone.

Pub's releases of late seem to be getting more and more minimal, a far cry from his gorgeous work on "Do You Ever Regret Pantomime?" and the deep and dubby sounds of ">Single". On "Sekatuo Ton" (a slightly different version of his highly limited 4xCDr album on Talent Hoover), Pub takes it down even further, with the first two tracks "Magda Tunnel I" and "Magda Tunnel II" being appropriately named with their dark subterranean ambience, but are completely devoid of any of the classic Pub melodies. Sadly, most of the tracks are in this vain, and some of the them feature field recordings of people talking by the beach, but if you wanted to hear that you could just go to the beach and hear it for free! Towards the end of the album, the mood brightens and you're left with a selection of short guitar based tracks, the likes of which I've never heard from Pub before, but ultimately are nothing special. The only tracks that sound like you would expect Pub to sound are "Waiting For The Sun", and "Crush", with the latter being the only track I really like. I think Pub did the minimal ambient stuff better on "Liltmor" and the live disc on "Do You Ever Regret Pantomime?", which just makes my feeling of disappointment greater because the potential for another great Pub album has been missed by a mile.