Scanner - Delivery

Scanner shows some musical talent out of nowhere, compare to his earlier releases, where numbers sound like field recordings and non-music songs. Beginning with Fingerbug, traditional methods of popular composition are used. Barcode deserves attention, but I like Throne of hives the best here. My lost love hunting your lost face grows eventually over the previously mentioned one, but only after repeated listenings. It is the sadness that takes time getting over (and the length of the tune).

The mid-90s were not kind to our Robin. Being at the forefront of electronic oddness for nearly a decade, he suddenly found himself playing second fiddle to a second generation of producers. Young turks like Autechre were scorching the electronic soundscape with music that was not only brave and challenging, but also incredibly well produced.
Scanner, like much of the isolationist camp (with the likes of Kevin Martin, Oval and Main to name a few), were 'sound collage' artists, using found sounds and samples, not the complicated algorithms of Autechre or Mouse On Mars.

Its not suprising then, that 'Delivery' sounds somewhat confused, incorporating the empty vistas of his previous work, with more dancefloor orientated rhythms, a mix thats misses more that it hits; Scanner seems uncomfortable in this environment, his mobile phone scanning reduced to a gimmick for the likes of the NME to latch on to. A bit like Aphex Twin's beard.

Saying that, the album itself, out of context, is not that bad. 'Fingerbug' and 'Barcode' both shuffle along in their own Orbital-esqe digi-funk kind of way, but its 'Heidi' and 'Affaire' that are the standout tracks here - dark and almost desperate ambient pieces, complimented by some truly odd scanning material - a prostitute talking to one of her regulars, a rudeboy intimidating his girlfriend - rank as some of Scanner's most affecting work.