Ensemble -- Sketch Proposals (Rephlex CAT101)
Rephlex is a label that by turns amazes and frustrates fans. For every
Bogdan Raczynski there's a DMX Crew (or Like A Tim) -- brilliant state
of the art stuff contrasted with prankish silliness. It's like they
really don't give a fuck -- which is interesting with respect to
using conceptual art as a business model, but annoying when you've dropped
your entertainment dollar on something that's unlistenable.
All is forgiven when they give us something as musically emotional involving
as the new Ensemble record. Ensemble seems to me to pick up several threads
in electronic music and fuse them into something wonderful.
From Pole/Oval/Etc they've incorporated the glitch aesthetic of percussion.
From Seefeel/My Bloody Valentine they've picked up the torch of sad,
vibrato-free female vocals. In fact when listening to Ensemble there are
times when it seems like that My Bloody Valentine album that will never
happen -- pop music that celebrates vagueness and lateral discursion.
And the assymetric lurching melodicism balanced against broken-radio
breakbeats seems to me to deliver on a promise that Oval never did, of making
an actual connection to the listener.
Which isn't to say that Ensemble is derivative, except in the sense that
no music occurs in a vacuum. They've just managed to synthesize their
influences into something that works. It is music that I'd love to see
performed live, really loud, even as it's overall impact is of quiet.
I'm hoping that they have a long career with Rephlex as they seem
to have plenty to say ...
kent williams -- kent@avalon.net
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