an irregular ::AOAIOXXYSZ:: communication
Read on to hear what I think about a group that manages to remind me of
Orbital, Autechre, BDP, Aphex Twin, Talk Talk, Michael Nyman, gamelan
orchestras and the Cocteau Twins, often all at once. Hint: I like it.
Reviewed Herein:
idm Spooky - Clank (Generic / A&M)
idm Spooky - Stereo (Generic / A&M)
idm Spooky - Shunt (Generic / A&M)
idm Spooky - Found Sound (Generic / A&M)
Artist: Spooky
Title : Clank
Label : Generic / A&M
Year : 1995
Cat No: GENRT001
Format: 12" / CDS
Clank
Oblong
Thai
Relief
Artist: Spooky
Title : Stereo
Label : Generic / A&M
Year : 1995
Cat No: GENRT002
Format: 12" / CDS
Stereo
Can't Remember
Do Not Adjust Your Set
Mono
Artist: Spooky
Title : Shunt
Label : Generic / A&M
Year : 1996
Cat No: GENRT003
Format: 12" / CDS
Shunt
Area 39
Concussion
Falx
Artist: Spooky
Title : Found Sound
Label : Generic / A&M
Year : 1996
Cat No: GENRCD1
Format: 2xLP / CD
4:50 Central Heating
5:41 Miscellaneous
1:20 Onglon
5:21 Bamboo
4:42 Aphonia
5:10 Tungsten
2:54 Lowest Common Denominator
1:09 Relapse
6:09 Hypo-Allergenic
4:06 Fingerbobs
1:09 Plan B
5:50 Concussion
0:55 Interim
5:26 Consume
6:02 Silver
4:02 Seneschal
It surprises me that more hasn't been said about recent Spooky output. I
count my three Spooky EPs (and now, the new album) as some of my favorite
records from the past two years. Their music is intelligently constructed
to the point of almost being intractable, but is also infused with a warm
pop sensibility that I often find missing in music hailed by the IDM
crowd. By turns reminiscent of Autechre, the Black Dog, Orbital, and the
Aphex Twin, overlaid with a thick New Wave melodic base, Spooky's music
ultimately sounds only like itself.
Most people who know Spooky's name remember them from their days as one
of the flagship progressive house acts on William Orbit's now-dead
Guerilla Records. Their story is that William Orbit found them either
hanging out in or working at a record store (I forget which), liked
something about their attitudes, and turned them loose in the Guerilla
studios. The result was a handful of popular singles and their debut LP,
_Gargantuan_. Although most of their early music was "merely" well-
crafted, melodic house, _Gargantuan_ was notable for its experimentation
and tight construction (I loved it, at least). Their early releases also
showed a fondness for subtle melody ("Little Bullet [Dumdum Mix]") and a
willingness to experiment with rhythm (the Steppin' Razor (Underworld)
remix of "Schmoo") that has stayed with them ever since.
Like most of the Guerilla roster, Spooky disappeared for awhile when
Orbit shut Guerilla down, and I stopped thinking about them (although I'm
still searching for copies of the "Little Bullet" and "Schmoo" singles --
anybody who wants to get rid of or trade them should get in touch with
me). However, last autumn, a few people on this list mentioned that they
were putting out new releases on their own label (distributed, oddly
enough, by A&M) and that they were weird and IDM-relevant, so I decided
to check them out.
What I found blew me away. Not only is the new Spooky much improved over
the old Spooky, each new release is a huge leap ahead of the previous
ones (and indeed most dance music being produced, period). Endlessly
listenable, intricate, heartbreakingly emotional at times, and certain to
cause damage on the dance floor, Spooky have come to embody to me
everything that IDM has the potential to be. I don't think I can pay them
a higher compliment than that.
"Clank" is the weakest release of the bunch, but I don't think that's
saying much, because it's a solid release in its own right, and only
suffers in comparison to later Spooky material. "Clank" and "Relief" are
two different mixes of the same breakbeat track, but where "Clank" is
chopped up, dissonant, and frequently uses backmasked beats, "Relief" is
melodic and uses smooth, sampled female vocals to good effect.
"Oblong" and "Thai" are the first of many Spooky tracks to show a
prominent ethnic influence. "Oblong" sounds like nothing so much as an
uptempo gamelan song over a breakbeat, and "Thai" is a haunted, downtempo
counterpart. If you've never heard the most prominent cultural export of
the Indonesian islands, you owe it to yourself to track down some good
gamelan orchestra recordings. Gamelan orchestras are about as non-Western
as music gets, with very different notions of tonality and rhythm than
what most Westerners are accustomed to. They sound like rain in the
jungle with their percussive metallic instruments. The gamelan's music
almost manages to atone for what Indonesia has done to East Timor
(namely, brutalized and tyrannized its people), but I guess that's
neither here nor there.
Spooky integrates their ethnic influences as tightly as the Black Dog,
and to as good an effect. They obviously respect the artists who have
influenced them, even when using that influence to craft something far
more poppy than any gamelan recording I've ever heard (gamelan being
widely regarded as the indigenous classical music of Indonesia).
"Stereo" is one of my all-time favorite records, and the reason lies with
the title track. "Stereo" is one of those rare songs that almost
inevitably puts me in a happy, upbeat mood that makes me dance around my
apartment. This track single-handedly brought me out of the deep
depression I was in after I broke up with my last girlfriend.
Relentlessly upbeat in all senses of the word, "Stereo" is a bouncy track
with layers upon layers of organ riffs over a tight breakbeat loop. After
introducing several themes, the track moves to a melodic climax that
makes my chest tighten every time I listen to it. It's got a groovy beat
and you can bug out to it. This track alone is reason enough to buy
everything Spooky has ever recorded.
"Mono," far from being a remix of "Stereo," is probably intended to be
its spiritual complement. One of the few Spooky tracks to be built around
a four-on-the-floor beat, "Mono" is hard-edged and droney, with an
electric, feedback-driven edge to the synths and subtly percussive tones
lurking under the surface. It's somewhat reminiscent of the more
straight-ahead tracks from the D*Fusion stable (Mr. Ballistic, Anoesis,
and the rest of that gang) but without the clubby overtones.
"Can't Remember" and "Do Not Adjust Your Set" are relaxed tracks that
introduce another recurring Spooky motif: metallic clangs used as
instrumentation and percussion. If it weren't for the relentless
melodicism of the tracks and the fact that nobody makes that stuff for
real anymore, these two tracks would be called "industrial." But the
presence of oboe-like synths, piano, and marimba on "Can't Remember" and
the feedback-driven, distorted synth melodies of "Do Not Adjust Your Set"
makes the two tracks difficult to classify.
After the (at least marginal) accessibility of the first two of these
EPs, "Shunt" came as a total surprise. If you want to talk about
mind-melting releases, this should be high on your list. All the pieces
are put together on this release: "Shunt," "Concussion," and "Falx" all
feature distorted metallic clanging, unusual rhythms (even in the overtly
four-on-the-floor "Concussion"), and taut, dissonant melodies. Sounding
in parts like Autechre's "Anvil Vapre" (long may it wave), Aphex Twin's
funkier remixes of Mescalinium United, and not much else, these tracks
are a revelation that it took me a long time to fully comprehend. They're
as amazing as anything that's come out on Warp, though.
"Shunt" is the most noisy of the bunch. It's jerky, distorted, and
angry-sounding, and doesn't possess anything really resembling a melody,
for all its notes. For some odd reason crowds love it, though.
"Concussion" returns to the gamelan sound, with metal banging sounds and
the least straightforward four-on-the-floor I've heard in a while thrown
in for good measure. "Falx" reminds me of the music from Donkey Kong
Country, for some odd reason, but that's a good thing, because that game
has the best video-game music I've heard in a long while, and because
Spooky underpins it with a gorgeous New Wave-esque melody that hovers at
the edge of hearing (plus it saves me from having to trot out my
inevitable comparisons to the Myst soundtrack -- are the Millers ever
going to realize that they could make a bundle of cash by releasing the
soundtrack as a separate CD?).
And, just to keep you from being too comfortable with Spooky as being
clangorous noise freaks, "Area 39" is a brief, gorgeous interlude, which
could have easily been tacked onto the end of Talk Talk's _Spirit of
Eden_ (which is probably the single finest ambient jazz pop New Wave
classical release EVER -- people who considers themselves music lovers
and who don't own both _Spirit of Eden_ and _Laughing Stock_ should be
flogged. Talk Talk have come a LONG way from "Talk Talk" and "Such a
Shame", and like the mysterious and elusive My Bloody Valentine, had
better get a new album out before I have to hunt them down and kill
them).
Which brings us, finally, to "Found Sound". Spooky bring everything
together for this release, and the result bears comparison to such IDM
masterpieces as BDP's _Bytes_ and Autechre's _Amber_. Spooky, like both
BDP and Autechre, have found a sensibility all their own and made it
shine, and used the result to produce a unified album that is much
greater than the sum of its parts.
Far from what I expected it to be (a collection of the three EPs onto one
CD), this album spans the distance between Autechre ("Miscellaneous"),
Orbital ("Tungsten" and "Fingerbobs" among others), Cocteau Twins
("Hypo-Allergenic", which was co-written with the Cocteaux) and Michael
Nyman ("Lowest Common Denominator," which sounds like a much happier,
more compressed version of bits of the "Drowning By Numbers"
soundtrack). Musique concrete, techno, electro, and pop all have their
moments on this 16-track album (astute readers will have noted the many
shorter tracks on the albums, which should have been named "Phil x" for
the role they play). This album is taut, dignified, and eclectic, and is
my personal favorite for IDM album of the year (I still stand by my
choice of Alec Empire's _Generation Star Wars_ as last year's best IDM
release -- that album continues to grow on me).
Spooky have grown to the point that they never do anything the way that
you expect them to, and their songs are full of surprises. "Fingerbobs"
manages to recapitulate Orbital's history (from the Green Album until
now) in four minutes of song. "Lowest Common Denominator" is a beautiful
piece of beatless, minimal piano work. The constant New Wave melodic
references are almost always both unexpected and delightful (which is not
a word that I thought _I_ would ever use in a record review, but it
fits). Every one of the 16 tracks on this album belongs here.
It's worth noting that Spooky have said that the initial three EPs are
limited edition (in that they're only going to be pressed once, so once
they're gone, they're gone), and that Spooky considers them to constitute
a set together. Buy them now, while you still can. I'm almost willing to
promise that you won't regret it, but I realize that the members of this
list have widely varying tastes. If anything in this review piques your
interest, though, do go to the effort of chasing this stuff to ground. At
_least_ buy _Found Sound_. It needs to be heard by more people before it
(and Spooky) will get the recognition it's due. It's the equal of any
techno I've ever heard, and will continue to reward close listening for
some time to come.
yrz,
ozymandias
. . . the self-reflecting image of a narcotized mind . . .
ozymandias G desiderata ogd@organic.com Desperate, Deathless
(415)278-5674
http://www.organic.com/Staff/ogd/ ::AOAIOXXYSZ::