I thought this was quite good. I really like Simon Reynolds' writing.
from
http://members.aol.com/blissout/unfaves2001.htm
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DRUKQS SUKQS
2001 was a tough time for the aging Anglo vanguard of first-wave IDM:
Squarepusher reduced to parodying
2step garage to achieve even a mild frisson of novelty, Autechre alienating
even their hardcore devotees with
the ultra-abstruse Confield (which I actually quite enjoyed). Meanwhile
Richard D. James had reportedly retired
from music-making in order to probe the deepest recesses of computer
programming, in the hopes of total
aesthetic rejuvenation. Which made it doubly disappointing how so much of
Drukqs sounds merely like a slight
extension of the Aphex sound --- pretty splintered melody colliding with
hyperkinetic breakbeats---circa 1996's
Richard D James Album (which wasn't especially groundbreaking anyway).
Tracks like "omgyjya switch" offer
the same old drill'n'bass caricature of drum 'n' bass, whiplash beats
evoking the torsions and impacts suffered
by crash-test dummies. Clearly we too are meant to be stunned, concussed,
by the splattery extravagance of
ideas here. But the useless protean energy contorting these songs just
reminds me of The Boredoms. When
James slows the pace and attempts minimalist simplicity, though, the
results are equally unimpressive:
witness the series of short interludes in which he drops the digital
arsenal and plays inane chord sequences on
various acoustic keyboards---piano with reverb-pedal on full, a wheezy
harmonium with clacking foot-pedals,
and so forth. Let's just say he's no Erik Satie, no Harold Budd.
There's a fab four-track EP languishing within this double-CD's busy bloat:
"gwely mernans" is a gloomcore crypt
of ambient gabba, the distorted kickdrum sounding distant and suppressed,
its frantic pulse overhung by a
spectral synth-melody that lingers like a pall of luminous vapor;
"bbydhyonchord" glows and clanks like prime
Boards of Canada; "gwarek 2" brilliantly pastiches avant-classical
composers like Stockhausen and Nono with a
collage of agonised shrieks, insectile percussion, swarming sounds, and
quaint tape-effects; the madcap electro
of "Taking Control" sees a robo-voiced James using his personal superlative
"decent bit!" to herald a particularly
demented segment of drum machine mayhem. And doubtless there's probably a
fair few other "decent bits"
scattered across this double-CD, if you can be bothered to excavate them.
But like the legion of IDM producers
he's influenced, James seems paradoxically trapped by the "infinite
possibilities" offered by today's software
and plug-ins (the computer-music equivalent of guitar pedals), resulting in
infinitesimally detailed tweakage,
but no song-shapes or moodscapes that actually leave an imprint in your
memory, let alone your heart.
-
Michael
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http://www.ampcast.com/jetjaguar
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