The Black Dog - Temple of Transparent Balls
General Production Recordings Ltd. (GPR CD1)
5:05 Cost I
6:30 Cost II
6:11 4, 7, 8
5:17 The Actor And Audience
4:42 Jupiler
4:11 Kings Of Sparta
6:39 Sharp Shooting On Saturn
5:36 Mango
7:09 Cycle
5:22 In The Light Of Grey
5:10 The Crete That Crete Made
Sorry, but there's no way that I could measure BPM with any hope of
accuracy.
This being Black Dog's second album (that I've seen), I thought I'd
drop a review of it. I've heard that it is a compilation of earlier
pieces, but since my only other expsure to them is the Warp album _Bytes_,
I don't know if this is true or not. In any case, it's copyrighted 1993,
and there's a total lack of useful liner notes, so I can't tell what's up.
If you've heard _Bytes_, you have a general idea of what to expect
-- a unique use of breakbeats and strange synth patterns, no vocals or
vocal samples, nonstandard rhythms, etc. This holds true here, but many of
the tracks here lack the simplicity and smoothness of _Bytes_, instead
being more complex arrangements.
Standouts include:
Cost II (very complex layering of different patterns, but the
result sounds deceptively simple -- I can see why so many people in the
_Trance Europe Express_ book praised this)
Actor And Audience (sounds almost like and Aphex Twin track, from,
maybe Analogue Bubblebath 3. The same analog sounds, low boomy bass and
hi-hat patterns, but different in some way)
Sharp Shooting On Saturn (low, low bass track carries the track
along to a squelchy conclusion)
Mango (almost jazzy, in a digital way. Not acid jazzy, just jazzy.
And kinda funky.)
Crete That Crete Made (calm, beatless synth sweeps)
There isn't a bad track on the album. If you're into Black Dog or
intelligent dance music in general, I'd have to recommend this. I don't
think it's going to be released domestically, so some searching may be
necessary.
Rating: 9.5/10 (Almost perfect. A couple of the pecussion lines
they used seemed a little cliched to me.)
Disclaimer: If you haven't realized that opinion is intrinsic to a
review, then you should have stopped reading long ago. If you don't agree
with me, drop me a line and let me know why.
Jesse