LASSIGUE BENDTHAUS - Cloned
Metropolis MET 006
Apparently this is Atom Heart doing industrial? Yeah, there are some
whispery growly industrial-ish vocals, but they're pretty subdued and
in the background. The music ranges from acid squelchy kinda uptempo
dance stuff to downbeat grooving industrialish techno to total ambient
sound manipulation/exploration to Sherwood-esque distortion mania to
funky 808 electro to old school meat beat wanna-be to techno metal to
classic warp-style synth electro to just plain feedback
experimentation. Out there, bizarre, quite good in places. Skip
straight to the "re-cloned" stuff to start out then work your way
through the rest to avoid shock.
MAZARUNI - THE JUNGLE DUB EXPERIENCE
Ariwa ARICD109
This is... well, actually, I really have no idea what the hell this
is. It credits Mad Professor, William The Conqueror and King O Di
Jungle. It's got a lot of classic dub flavor (presumably courtesy of
Mad Professor) and a lot of rough jungle beats. The first track is
absolutely god awful pop reggaeish stuff with a headache-inducing
break. The rest of the disc is really nice though. The best tracks
combine dirty jungle breaks with the most tripped out dub effects
rotating around your head, body and through your brain. Smoke a big
one and sit on your subwoofer, that's my advice. There's also a
volume out that features Lee Scratch Perry that's just plain mad. If
you liked Mad Professor vs Massive Attack or the Mad Prof's remix of
Blue Room, you will probably like this too.
THE FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON - We Have Explosive
Astralwerks ASW 6196
Well, FSOL just continue to put out one stellar release after another.
You've got 45 mins of quality tunage here (and 3 minutes of radio edit
that doesn't count), well worth the horrible, awful, miserable,
poverty-inducing $8.99 that asw are asking. Let's take it bit by bit.
Part 1 - same as the album version basically with a minute of
trademark gratuitous FSOL weirdness tacked on the end.
Part 2 - leon del mar remix - I want to know who this guy is and what
else he has put out because this short track (2.37) is just amazing.
It's like jungle at 33 or something, all chopped up loops,
bowel-loosening bass and FSOL atmospheric effects flying around.
Part 3 - FSOL going retro, sampling tons of Fats Comet (adrian
sherwood funk project from the mid 80's) with one of their patented
beautiful descending melodic lines dribbled over the top. I am always
struck at how good FSOL are at marrying disparate elements. In this
case, they baldly take tons of keith leblanc's groove but somehow make
it their own.
Part 4 - the extended version of "herd killing" with extra bits 'n'
blobs added. makes me vaguely uncomfortable since i know the original
far too well.
Part 5 - beautiful, out there, spacey. reminds me quite a bit of
brian eno's "ambient 4: on land" - which is the highest compliment,
coming from me. there's a sort of laid back brushed drum groove, a
floating atmosphere layer, and the typical fsol noise effects darting
hither and yon. really fantastic, quite minimal and hypnotic, but in
the best possible way. stoner heaven.
Part 6 - oil funk remix - a cheeky funk groove with lots of great
sampling effects whizzing around the stereo image. manages to inject
a small dose of red hot chili peppers-esque funk without becoming too
cheesy or over the top.
Part 7 - mantronik plastic formula #1 - one for the ravers! it's 1992
all over again, sirens, the apache break, congas, cheesy orch stabs,
the synth buzzes from the original filtered via belgian techno... this
is beautiful, so much fun. i wish i could go back in time to a 1992
rave and play this at the peak of the night, people would just, well,
explode, really... EXPLOSIVE!
Part 8 - oil dub - another "jungle at 33" type deal, with the amen
break this time. (i almost forgot what it sounded like at its normal
tempo after only having heard it pitched way the fuck up by all those
junglists.) as you might expect, lots of low bass and serious echo
chamber breakdown action in effect. speaking of bass, there is some
great squarepusher-esque bass playing in here.
FSOL have done a great job at picking remixers who complement and
enhance their vision, rather than walking all over it with steel-toed
boots. This EP (more like a mini album - it's longer and more varied
than the Richard D James album, at any rate!) is cohesive, and well
worth every penny.
---jsd
"Sanity is a one trick pony...you only get one trick: rational thinking...
but when you're good and crazy,the sky's the limit!!" - The Tick.