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Kettel / Setzer - Kettel / Setzer Split - 24-Dec-03 03:26 AM
Fun with arpeggios. For those of us with traditional music roots, this is good stuff. Slowly rotating crystals of arpeggios juxtaposed with ez yet active beats. Black Dog and Plaid users check it out.

Coil - Love's Secret Domain - 03-Jul-03 07:28 AM
1993: techno was beginning to grow cliched and crusty already. Love's Secret Domain came flying in from left field and knocked a lot of us upside the head. It wasn't techno or rock or post-punk, house, experimental or industrial. A little of each, certainly but most of all it is a concept album. A personal oeuvre of some young bright minds saying "here's how we percieve existence". The tension of hyperawareness runs through each of these pieces like a painful throbbing wound.
Disco hospital starts with some cut-up to raise the shackles of the listener and blast away preconcieved notions. Teenage lightning is a wistful glance back to the intense and unforgettable moments of first love. Things happen brings us past the glow of youth into the late-twenties, with a fantastically run-down female vocalist who sounds like an east european Dorian Gray. Then comes the snow: voices of the dead singing at the living across the frozen wasteland of time. Dark River is a contemplative demo that might be filler, but it provides some needed emotional breathing room before track 6, which is possibly the best use of digeridoo in any piece i've heard (before it became overused). Also the dub-like bass kick on 06 is a great speaker test. Teenage lightning 2 is an even more keening bossa nova revierie on lost youth. Windowpane is a bit of an electro-dub throwback to Throbbing-Gristle/Psychic_TV. Further Back and Faster has to be one of trippiest damn tracks ever - a unique combination of dub rhythm and acid synth textures - play it LOUD! Titan arch takes us into gothy This Mortal Coil-esque trance. Chaostrophy is a fantastic piece of heavy drug schizophrenia - shades of 'Revolution Number Nine'. Lorca Not Orca is our third melancholy encounter with Teenage Lightning. The album finishes strong with a quavering shakespearian spin on William Blake's "the Sick Rose". Anyone into Industrial, Goth or Darkwave or just plain creative electronica needs to hear (and buy!) this truly seminal CD.

Coil - The Snow EP - 03-Jul-03 06:37 AM
Considering the release date, this was a brilliant step forward in electronic music. Combining big, hard breakbeats with an absolutely eerie sample of an old vocal quartet (Mills Brothers?). If you like any of Jack Dangers / Meat Beat Manifesto, this is one you can not pass up. Start with that Psychic TV / Throbbing gristle acid-born prescience and uneasiness, throw in driving MBM-style breakbeats and Spooky-like synth textures. Top off with one of the most haunting vocal samples ever to grace an electronica album. These are long dead ghosts from the past, voices heard in the howling wind, saying 'All too soon, life had passed. Carpe diem, foolish mortal."

Nobukazu Takemura - Scope - 03-Jul-03 04:10 AM
"what plaidzebra said" Start with a dollop of Ryoji Ikeda, mix with Oval - Wohnton without the vocals, then garnish with a sprinkle of early Mouse on Mars. Brings to mind a liesurely sunday stroll through an art gallery.

Peace Orchestra - Peace Orchestra - 30-Jun-03 09:58 AM
P. Kruder's solo stuff. Lots of lo-fi beats with contrabass and electric piano. Less stylistically rigid than the Kruder and Dorfmeister stuff i've heard. Very soundtrack-ey. Lots of ambience on the tracks. Heavy use of envelope-driven filters on instruments. Tracks have lots of negative space. Like a summer night with moonlight glistening on a calm lake.

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