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Plone - 09-Aug-01 02:46 PM
For fans of Air and /or Jean-Jacques Perrey. Sweet wackiness from start to finish. Never groundbreaking, but highly enjoyable nevertheless. 'For Beginner Piano' is their best work to date. (aug 2001) - Mil

Jamie Lidell - 08-Aug-01 07:12 AM
Yes, 'Daddy's Car' is such a great track!! Easily the best R track I ever heard. Intensely perverted, dark and superfunky for sure!! Though it's a bit of a different animal, it blows Squarepusher's 'My Red Hot Car' straight out the water. The album is rather heavy by Warp-standards and half of it sounds disturbingly 'angry', but it's certainly worth getting. Sounds very punk-like and raw (skeletal) upon first listen, but afterwards it's astonishing how well it's all put together and it becomes more like angry jazz. Very original take on electronics and this in the year 2000! Halleluha!
Damn near essential stuff even if just because nothing sounds quite like it.

Max Tundra - 08-Aug-01 07:11 AM
Max Tundra (Ben Jacob) is widely underestimated. Belongs in the short list of great (electronic) musicians who fuse electronic and acoustic sounds in the late nineties and beyond (like Tom Jenkinson, Richard James, Mike Paradinas, Mouse On Mars etc) His work is more acoustic-sounding than most and his approach is most similar to Squarepusher's prior to 'Music Is Rotted One Note'(Max never quite sounds 'nihilistic' if that makes any sense). Over the top Drill'nBass drum programming on a Yamaha QY20, with great feeling for nice and simple melodies and very unminimalistic thinking overall.
'Children At Play' on Warp contains two fantastic tracks in that fashion, which (at the time) made me crave for more. Luckily Max released 'Some Best Friend You Turned Out to Be' last year and it proved that he is very accomplished, both as 'regular' songcomposer and in his musical 'ideas' throughout. Very cutting edge stuff that sounds great. Like avantgarde without the pretention and that's actually fun to listen to. Like a small and appropriate celebration of being able to freely mix all kinds of music together.
If Kraftwerk was the epitome of 'pure' electronic music, Ben Jacob's music could well be the same for its impure counterpart. For all those who think mixing music ends with DJ Shadow...

Lilienthal - 05-Aug-01 03:45 PM
Nice IDM outfit. Both the Pink release on Zealectronic and their tracks on the Emanate compilation are of premium quality. For 'fans' of Autechre's 'Incunabula' or L'Usine (who released the 'Blue' Zealectronic by the way).

Caustic Window - Compilation - 05-Aug-01 03:45 PM
Release for die-hard fans first. Redefined the words harsh and weird in 1992. For sure one of Richard D. James'lesser known works. Originally released on Rephlex as Joyrex J4 (CAT004), J5 (CAT005) and J9 (CAT009).
There's a bit of everything here really. CAT005 was the most melodic (beautiful) of the three. CAT004 also features some slower tracks (though nothing here with the quality of Selected Ambient Works Vol.I). CAT009 is pure acidstyle hardcore but unfortunately a bit overly repetitive for my taste.

If you're looking for more records in this style (with a somewhat similar feel), check out Frost Jockey's 'Burgundi Trax vol I& II' on Planet µ or Mike Paradinas' earlier work ('Bluff Limbo' in particular if you like chainsaws through your speakers!).

For those of you owning the Rephlex-reissue of this material, I would advise to get those vinyls out of those plastic sleeves ASAP!!! Seems like the plastic starts interacting with the vinyl in a nasty chemical way that could (and will!) damage your records as far as I can tell!! No good reason to let thát happen, now is there?

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