Space Time Continuum: Emit Ecaps

Let's the the obvious out of the way... reverse the title and it spells "Space Time". This title and the name of the group are things you can really only get away with in the 90s or before (the album came out in 1996, btw), or if you are a bad Goa-Trance producer. With the cheesy titles aside, this is a really cool album that really takes the best of electronica (notice the 'A' after electronic (another cheesy 90s title for Electronic Music)) and ambient music. The first Track "Iform" brings up thoughts of artists such as "Orbital" and "Future sound of London" with their Very synthetic beats, and "Global Communication" and "B-12" with Clean sounding synths delivering catchy melodies. The Second track Kairo, starts off with a ethnic sounding Synth sound that would make "Kraftwerk" proud and then builds throughout from breakbeat to Jazz inspired Drum-n-Bass to straight-up ambient. Kairo, running at 11:49 minutes, is one to put on for a real introspective listen. The rest of the tracks range from 3 minutes to 7 minutes with the same sequencer structure found in a lot of artists during that time period. The structure is very much play a pattern, add another pattern, add another pattern, and so on, while filter modulating. The tracks "Funkyar" and "Swing Fantasy" have interesting chord structures and melodies that really remind me why "Space Time Continuum" and Mouse on Mars" would usually be in the same conversation when discussing music. All in all, this is a great album to really feel what the best of mid 90s to late 90s electronic music sounded like. On the flip side, at times it sounds slightly contrived since it is using a lot of the cliches that proceeded this release. It feels like it is mimicking what really worked at the time instead of exploring any new ground.

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William Basinski: The Distintegration Loops (Vols I to IV)

Instead of me reviewing/recommending one album... I am going to review 4. The reason why is that it is such a great series. This is from the prolific minimal/ambient composer, "William Basinski". He deals mainly in tape loops, drones, and phasing (imagine two drum beats going side by side, now set the temp (speed) of one drum beat very slightly higher or lower, the sound starts to "phase" in and out being synced, creating an interesting hypnotic effect ("Steve Reich"'s Piano Phases is a great example)) . William had a series of very emotive tape loops that were on literally their last play. He decided to take a collection of these very beautiful tape loops and play their swan song and record them. This was made also very poignant in that it coincided with September 11th (He mentions that in his description). "Clip 3" off of Volume II actually made me kinda choked up during the last couple of minutes when the tape was completely deteriorated before my very ears... It was like recording a poetic death (Like those you read in viking stories). Even though I hold this series in very high regards, this is not for the average listener. clip 1.1 goes on with the same pattern for over an hour, it is distorted and doesn't change at all. You really have to appreciate drone and minimal. If you are new to drone and/or minimal music, I recommend first listening to drone artists like "Starts of the Lid" and "Biosphere", minimal artists like "Steve Reich" and "Hauschka" to slowly getting accustomed to these genres of music. If you are ready to plunge into Minimal drone, however, this is a series for you...beautiful, haunting, and original.

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Recue: All the Wrong Places

This album came out in summer 2008 through the Rednetic label. Once you click play (do we "press" play anymore?), it starts with lush, well crafted melodies and textures and doesn't let up at all. The artist, Riku Annala, really has a great grasp on tonalities and full spectrum of sound. For the most part he follows the formula to create good melodic electronic IDM music. Let's go through the list: Glitchy analog beats with sprinkles of 64th beat (really fast) hi hats and glitch in place of hi-hats (check), rolling deep slinky melody driven bass lines (check), ambient pads filling the spectrum throughout each track (check), and interesting counter melodies of the bass played by monophonic leads drenched in verb (check). In other words, if you like artists like "Proem" and "Diagrams of Suburban Chaos", you will not be disappointed in the least bit. The album lacks slightly on innovation, but makes up for really capturing what makes this genre (if you can call it that) one of my favorites to listen to. Standout tracks include "Gbliss" and "Savant". In order to get a copy, you go the label's site for download and then pick the album. You can get his other album (really good too!)Here for free!

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