well I've finally taken myself down to check out the latest few big idm releases, and... one question: when was 'ps I love you' released? I haven't heard anything about it from anywhere, so I was quite surprised to see a new kid606 album in the store... or at least I hadn't seen it before. a prolific boy... starting to make prince look like my bloody valentine. it's very good anyway, both his tracks and his titles just keep getting better and better (though track-wise nothing has topped that glorious hrvatski catstep remix and title-wise nothing has quite surmounted 'luke vibert...')! but I particularly liked the last couple of songs.
also listened to the new red snapper and I have to say I really think they lost the plot after prince blimey... them and the herbaliser seem to have slopped into lazy jazzy pseudo-souly anaemic (albeit quite danceable) trip-hop without much real personality. but despite my over-harsh words, it isn't terrible, just nothing at all special. I also listened to the new jamie liddell record having heard a lot about it on this list and I dig it much more than the rs but didn't really get me going. too fiddly, a bit too 'bitches brew' for my taste maybe. i mean, I love bb but I don't want to hear it repeated in an autechre stylee... but not bad.
on the other hand, I have been really getting into the matmos album 'the west'. I take it this is new... I've only heard their pluramon remix and their rachel's collaboration before, but this is great. for a start the cover / sleeve are great... and the music's fantastic. kind of post-rock meets idm, drum'n'bass, morricone, tortoise, papa m twangy-type guitar (well it does feature dave pajo after all). it's coherent, it's exciting, it's different, it's richly textured... I love it. have these boys got other records out, and are they as good? I heard they were kind of overly minimalist (which you can hear a bit of here... all found sounds and scraped metal bars and stuff)... like main or something. who are totally beyond me. anyways, that's it for now.
Anthony.