Ceephax* – Drive Time

Short, sometimes experimental pieces from the younger Jenkinson, Ceephax. DRIVE TIME is packed full of these fragmentary tracks, few of which clock in longer than two minutes. Thus, it's difficult for the album to either sustain a mood or to convey a message. Rather, we get some blasts of sound and noise, like "Welcome To The Syphilis Party," which could be an early Wishmountain track or the harsh chaos of "Woodpecker." When he goes for a longer piece, he's able to evoke much more, like the eerie atmosphere of "Ancient Ambient" and "The Last Ferry" or the nascent groove of "Carialco." Some of these tracks, like "Acid Tabernacle" or "Do You Wanna Fight Or Something Mate?" could easily be developed into full tracks, but some are just fine as silly tunes, like the weird "Egyptian Spiders" or the bubbly "Popquorn." The longest track, "The Coast," winds around like an icy road, until "Ambient Puker" bombs the mood into oblivion. Alas. This album is a curiosity, but not one that bears repeated listens.

This is a nice "big soup" of rythym and ambient by the 303 king Andy Jenkinson aka Ceephax. While lots of snippets, demo material and tomfoolery abound here, there are also some very seriously dark, mental ambient pieces here that cannot be ignored ("the last ferry") as well as some very nice moody downtempo acid tracks ("carialco"). All around a fun romp with a naturally talented producer on alot of legendary Roland x0x boxes. This was originally released on cassette tape with an early record he released on Firstcask.