Wasn't really sure what to expect from this album. The name 'James Blake' seems to get passed around a lot, but I've never stopped to read-up on him. I've heard a few things by him in mixes, mainly fairly good (UK) dubstep.

Discogs has this album as 'Leftfield, Dubstep, Soul, Vocal'. After my first listen, it felt comparable to a minimal indie rock or spoken-word album - any Dubstep is minimized to an 'influence' role. The music is secondary to his voice in most tracks, playing an emphasis or punctuation role. Sometimes the music drops out altogether.

In the best tracks, this feels like he's surpassed the need for complicated sound structures beyond what his voice and some slight modulations produces, and created something that's hard to compare to.

But if that seems too pretencious (and about a third the time it is for me), you're limited to the tracks with a bit more music ('I Never Learnt To Share', 'I Mind', and the one most people are likely to have heard, 'Limit To Your Love'). But even those have to be surrounded by similar material - they don't transition well with anything other than minimal techno or ambient or quiet indie stuff, just because there's so little to transition with. So you'll want to listen to the album on it's own (easy to do on a CD, but something to remember for a digital purchase), or gather stuff of similar sound to accompany it.

All in all, it's worth hearing, and you might even quite like it: it's definitely unique. But you can just as easily be bored if his voice turns you off, since that's all there is. Borrow it if you can (don't youtube it unless you can get a playlist with all the tracks together), and see if it works for you.

A very impressive release. Found it via a forum's 'free releases' thread - Technicolour caught my eye, as I'm familiar with some of his music, and so I downloaded it.

The contents were not what I was expecting, to say the least. Very mellow, laid-back, sort of experimental type sounds on all three (relatively long) tracks.

Technicolour's track is a dubstep influenced outing with an ambient intro and some classic breaks in the middle, my pick of the three. Kogyo's feels like older, more classic-sounding ambient mixed with some modern classical arrangements and a constant quiet hand drum beating away throughout. Marc Atmost's seems a little generic next to the first two, but it's still a very nice tune, with clean soundscape of ambient tones and light beats.

Definitely with picking up if you're at all a fan of electronic music.

Saw this on Beatport and picked it up, having heard the other version in a 0=0 mix. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be exactly the same version that was making the rounds (there's a clip from Bailey's show that gets linked most often).

The intro is the same, and most of the samples are identical, but the bass has been changed to have a weird buzz, the snare's been pushed way into the background, and beats are changed a little - makes it feel more like a breakbeat track and a dnb tune. The middle breakdown's weaker due to a sample change, and the lack of snare & drum edits that the original had, as well as the flute getting lost in it all.

Has sort of the feel of a tune that got lost, with this as the reconstruction attempt.

The 0=0 mix was extremely low quality, something happened to the recording equipment or something, but I still could make out the tunes (in general). The version of this tune in the mix absolutely blew me away, and I dug up some other clips, checked out the original tune the samples were taken from, saw some posts saying it was coming out on a label, and generally did a bunch of googling trying to find out about the track and the artists. This was released with no fanfare a year later, and I suppose it's an ok tune on it's own, but it almost feels more like another low-quality preview of a much more ear-catching tune than any kind of release.

In short, if you heard the original remix when it was first making the rounds, and really prefer that version, this one may not meet your expectations; if you never heard the original and are interested in some ok dnb with AR Rahman samples used well, then this is a good purchase.

You'll often run into tracks that run a little longer than they need to. Their point is well established in the first minute or two and the rest only serves to reinforce, and thus a 7 minute song can drive you crazy because it lacks any evolution.

These songs are some of those songs that run longer than they need to, but they will by no means drive you to boredom.

These are some fierce tracks. The reinforcement is unnecessary for the concept, but it sounds so good that you'd rather have it play out than have to hit the repeat button again.

Okain and Rndlp2 both feel less like traditional Acid and more like some stripped out and rebuilt Daft Punk track that has tinges of Acid dripped all over the finished product, leaving you with this hard core of solid beats and just unrelenting builds and drops. Static and distortion are used to great effect, and the namesake sound of the artist fits in well. Clorela Treas is more familiar, and by that measure is more varied, but I personally didn't like it as much. Some of the beats seemed to get discordant and the woosh/hum sound over a majority of the track was distracting.

Still, a great release worth checking out, whether or not you're a fan of Nsect's other work.

Boddika's House is the tune everyone's heard, it's what's been played the most in various D-Bridge and Instra:mental sets.

The flip is what does it for me though. A bit unexpected - much more fierce than A, albeit in a different tone. Both sides have the classic techno vibe, but B starts out nice and quiet, goes around a bit and then drops heavy with the pulsing beat over perfectly pitched bass. The strong tempo mostly holds for the whole tune, but that's fine for techno.

I don't have much experience with regular techno, mainly dub techno, which this isn't, and dubstep, which I can hear in this. If you wanted to take a thoughtful Dubstep mix in a pure techno direction, this would be a great tune, I think.

In a word: Trentemøller

Good, certainly, but very, very similar to Trentemøller's Last Resort. Stjernekiggeri, the track which led me to I Syv Sind is actually one of the standout tracks, being it's own style of ambient rather than cover-band-level techno outings. Even the vocals on Med Små Skridt are done in a similar style to the vocals in The Last Resort. Intros are a little more drawn out, and IDM and (dare I say) dubstep influences are a little stronger, but that's about it.

If you loved The Last Resorts and want more, this is for you. If you haven't heard Trentemøller, listen to this first to hear it fresh, and maybe it'll stand out more. But as it is, I can't say it's something new and mindblowing.

Synkronize is a weird tune, in a sort of Jonny L-kind-of-weirdness which is no bad thing. His usual warped bass sounds over a vocal sample and a nice chimes melody, and the expected clean drums. But there's also these out-of-place samples that pop up throughout. Flies buzzing? Muffled dog barking or something? Frogs croaking? I've got no idea, but it makes for a unique track. As said, it's not a bad tune - definitely a good one, but one that might make your forehead crease in confusion a little as you listen.

Oh, and Phreak's ok. Old school sample and a buzzing bass, *shrug*. Not as good (or attention-catching) as the A side.

Gave it a 5 just for Deastro's track.

I'm a fan of [adult swim]'s little interludes w/ music, and had been keeping an eye out for the music in case it got released in some obtainable form. Noticing this label (and it's easily accessible digital releases), I downloaded a bit, and was pleasantly surprised by this release. Not so much with the African and Def Swims, but that's for another review I suppose.

Some of this follows the instrumental hiphop standard (Dabrye, FLYamSAM), some of it's more drawn-out mellow downtempo (10:32, Milosh), some IDM (Cepia, Dark Party), chiptune? (Aeroc), and some of it's less-classifiable (Deastro, The Chap). All around good sampler for headphone oriented electronic music. Still not sure if it's the music they actually use on the TV channel, but it's close enough for the moment....

Recommended tracks: Blue Little, Light Powered, Traffickers.

Edit: I posted this a little over two years ago, and the tune that's stood the test of time the best would have to be Traffickers. Maybe it's just because it's similar to what I listen to regularly, but I often come back to it for a good loud roll out. My only lament is the 256kbps quality is a little lacking at the top.

Is there such a thing as minimal Drum & Bass? Regardless, Icarus definately fits. Slow, calm buildup over subbass into an Ed Rush & Optical-like shaker/cymbal/drum combo. A very clean operation, with even the slightly distracting beeps and whistles ending up sounding good.

Sensation sorta follows the same idea, but ends up showing how easy it is to miss the mark with techy stuff. While the drums are solid, the muffled bass is boring. The little synthy tune that runs counterpoint is much more interesting (which unfortunately isn't saying much).

All in all, an acceptable release, with Icarus as the main reason to pick it up.

I was surprised to find this here, though I suppose it makes sense given the musical content.

I blame the Hive track for getting me into Drum & Bass. After hearing this track, I searched out what I could find by Hive (since 'Elias Associates' are totally unknown (and the original Chase wasn't all that special anyway)). I ended up stumbling upon Teebee's remix of Surreal Uncut, and I was hooked.

There's not much special about the release, 1, 3 through 5 and 7 seem to be specially produced for this free release, and the production values show through. Thievery Corp serve up a nice sort of bouncy dub, sort of breaks thing, but Hive's remix is the only reason to pick this up. Standard Hive breaks over a solid backgound bass hum and the original track's ambient loop. A nice extrapolation on the original, even if it is a bit subdued for a dnb track.

On a side note, I might mention that my copy of this didn't come with all the extras, but then I got mine attached to a car magazine, so it's to be expected.