Hey all. I know that the subject matter in these parts is usually regarding
that which is happening RIGHT NOW, and it could be that I just hadn't
joined the list when the new album was released...but is Oliver Lieb not
totally fucking brilliant? I've been a huge fan of his and specifically of
his work in the guise of Spicelab since the first ep in '92 and I've had
the newest album (spy vs. spice) for a few months. On hearing it again
recently I couldn't help but be won over--all over again. Any comments out
there? Musically speaking, what's amazing about it--besides being pure
techno, perhaps the realization of crystalized techno that is as ambient as
it is danceable--is that, like Aphex and others, he uses snippets of whole
genres that are then stitched together to form a new piece and usually a
sort of sonic commentary on the transmutable genres that form techno. Where
Aphex can sound like the whole of Industrialized Western Civilization
having a seizure (a truly awesome thing), Spicelab evokes the sound of
whatever Hyper-Adaptable Technosapien might exist after the fall. And
again, there may have been a whole thread on this when it was first
released, but I wasn't on the list yet....
K