Terrestre – Secondary Inspection

As Gott said (see his comment below), this album still sounds particularly interesting today, simply because it was crafted with a timeless sound design. I hear absolutely nothing that sounds retro inside, nor any futurism that would sound dated today. In contrary, it still sounds even more forward-thinking than a big amount of current releases.

"Secondary Inspection" is certainly one of the sharpest and most stylish creation emerging from the 2000s' minimal scene. I've always loved Fernando Corona's textures and microscopic aesthetics. There's something particularly clever, precise, way ahead of its time in his way to design his beats. He sounds like the logical progression of music, because he tends to make the PC sound like a subtle "acoustic" instrument, and not like something making shiny, glossy, botox, too powerful and artificial sounding music. Everything born after these clicky/nano aesthetics within the electronic scene in general (rawer, heavier and retro sounds of the 2010s) sound like a kind of "regression" on some degree. For me, nothing superior to this aesthetics (in terms of style and intelligence) has been done for the moment (it's of course a very personal point of view). "Secondary Inspection" illustrates my point especially well, because all the sharpness, the organic vibe, the chirurgical, clicky yet playful sounds are here, wrapped together for a maximum burst of perfection. I'm not the biggest fan of albums containing remixes from other artists, but here, even these two remixes are very nice and fun, and fit the mood of the album. A pleasure from A to Z.

Parenthesis : I first discovered this album with a really bad sound system. I could not hear the bass very well. I fell in love with it nevertheless and kept listening to it this way. But a few months later, I re-discovered it with my good headphones, and that was another experience, particularly with this album because the bass, itself, is as interesting as the rest of the sounds. The bass is indeed singularly crafted, incisive, more agressive than what I thought (a real pleasure in the track "Eijido Del Terror"), and adds something even more infectious to the tracks (particularly in "Vaqueros Del Ayer", where the bass reaches an incredible level of fever). Really an astonishing work.

I don't like comparing and matching artists in general, but as the "green" touch is not common in electronic music, I suggest to fans of early Portable (Alan Abrahams) to listen to this piece of music. There's a similarity in the "nano", numerical, clicky textures, and the same genius in the way to craft unique organic beats. You will love it, definitely (and guess what, Alan's and Fernando's early works were signed on the same label called context.fm back in early 2000s. I'm not surprised. Many thanks to Sutekh, the label head, for bringing their music to the international audience. These two men changed my vision of music).