As promised.
Sorry guys I don't have the cat no's to hand, but y'all know this
stuff is on Rephlex, is by Chris Jeffs, and you can get the info from
fluid'#s discog on Hyperreal.
Kinesthesia Vol.1
Re-released and now more freely available, but with a slightly
different sleeve, so I believe from the graphic on hyperreal.
Kicks off on Side A with "Church of Pain" at c160bpm.
Sorry, but I don't think too much of this. It bashes along rather too
fast for it's own good, and though it chops and changes a lot, it's
all rather one-dimensional
Next up, "Kobal". This is more like it. Only 120bpm. A
church-organ-like synth wash starts us off. Nice fluid bass and
Detroity synths with feeling. Slightly dark/sad in timbre, plus
electro-ey touches to the beats and breaks.
On Side B comes "German". A sample of a chap saying "All night
everyone thought we were German" punctuates this. Bahes away at
140bpm like a series of accidents in a light engineering workshop
looped to a beat - bashes, clonks, drilling, sawing etc.
Finally, "4J" rounds things off. A Melodic synth and the overall feel
remind me of Aphex's "On" without the crunchy beats. A pattering beat
and tasty bass washes underly the cute (but not to cute) synth top
line.
Overall a litlle patchy , but worth 3/5 in my book. The tracks are a
little underdeveloped, but that rawness is perhaps part of the
appeal, though not for me in the case of "Church of Pain".
Kinesthesia 2
Released (for the first time?) at the same time as the re-release of
Vol.1
Side A kicks off with "Quadrephlex", 140bpm. A curious mixture of
blippy popcorn-style synths and bashing complex phased rhythms. A
sound like a ships hooter. Two abrupt tempo-drops punctuate the tune,
followed by silly arcade-game style noises and echo. The end of the
track is another abrupt slow-down.
"plouth" follows at 136bpm. A lovely big ambient intro precedes a
track composed of attractive synths and fizzy rhtyhms
First on Side B comes "Meltdown Man" at 155bpm. Almost as fast as
"Church of Pain" but a whole lot better. Aphexy noisecore, bad to the
bone. Rattling rhythms and searing white noise compete for your
eardrums' life. Like Joyrex J9 only faster. Quite close to the Cylob
material.
Finally, "Lave Trader" winds things up. A sweeping phased intro
precedes a pleasant 125bpm beat, piano-ish synth and housey bassline.
Pretty mellow overall - this would have been called "Deep House" a
few years ago, kinda like Mr Fingers, but kinda not.
This is actually the better of the 2 EPs and is very close to earning
4 out of 5. As both of these singles have (c) dates of 1993, and
judging from the Cylob 12", I think we can expect great things from
Mr Jeffs for sure. This patchy but exciting work is reminiscent of
earlier Aphex material such as Joyrex J4 and J5, and after all
there's only really a year or two between the recording of those
and this. Now that Rephlex are pulling out all the stops, we can
expect to see the album in the genuinely foreseeable future, and I
think it will be well worth checking out.
J
^
__________
________.__/_____ _||_/ James Skilton aka Steady J
_[]/_____________[.__\____-_ DJ and Party Animal
| | Part Time Hedonist
|____________________________| Full Time Technohead
|__|-' '-|__| Steady-J@Firefox.co.uk