IDM Mailing Archive

:::Artificial Intelligence II: more electronic listening music from Warp 1. Mark Franklin : Release To The System Good stuff. Nice use of female vocal samples that Im not usually too keen on. Nothing in particular I feel I can say about this track except that it all works together very nicely. 2. The Higher Intelligence Agency : Selinite A nice chirpy little track backed by one of those easy "idm" beats. 3. Link : Arcadian Link is another work by the Pritchard/Middleton duo behind Global Communications. An airy track with some nice ambient segues which break between the shuffley beats. Good stuff. 4. B12 : Scriptures This one carries that distinctive sound held throughtout B12s Electrosoma album from the first series. More of the same - perhaps a little more upbeat. 5. Autechre : Chatter For some reason im not quite clear of, I love this track. It opens with some nice squirty acid sounds which continue throughout - but then, out of nowhere, comes this wicked shuffley beat. Builds up a little with some ascending and descending tones and finally comes to a halt after close to seven minutes. Two thumbs up. 6. Speedy J : Symmetry More good stuff from Jochem Paap who brought us one of the highlights of the first series. An airy piece full of reaching chords that build up into a huge amount of colour. Very uplifting. 7. Beaumont Hannant : Utuba My Beaumont Hannant experience has really only been limited to his remix work, most recently with Autechres Basscadet remixes. This is a nice little track with some sharp beats and a nice construction which works very effectively. 8. Richard H Kirk : Reality Net A slow sounding, sluggish track kept alive by an interesting melody and repetative warbling tone. Works very well, its very smooth. 9. Balil : Parasight My first thought was "wow, this is Balil?" A nice upbeat acid track from the boys at Black Dog. 10. Seefeel : Spangle As I mentioned before in a previous review, this is one of the few Seefeel tracks that I really like. It has a very chidlike chime melody, and when that high pitched vocal sample comes in it becomes quite haunting. 11. Darrel Fitton : Blipsalt A long track which works itself along over waving spacey synths. 12. Polygon Window : My Teapot To be honest, when I first heard this I was very dissapointed. On a first listen it sounded like a poorly structured, plodding mess of sound but now im not so sure. Its along the same lines as "Phlid" in many way using the same or similar farty samples. Ive listened to it many times now though and I get the get feeling there is genius behind this madness - its awkwardnes is beginning to make sense in my mind. The only thing I can really say is to take a listen for yourself. :::Summary: This is a battle of the idm heavyweights and one of my favourite releases of the year so far. Its a good sampler to get to know many of the musicians who are talked about so frequently on this list but, on the other hand, I wish Warp had introduced us to more new faces so we could expect more of the forthcoming releases. This vinyl version appears to be a better pressing than previous Warp pressings, and came with a free 12" which I shall review at another time. More bonus points for using the thread on the first artificial intelligence compilation which was cross-posted between idm and the uk-dance mailing list in the artwork. Buy it. _______ (__,-, \ / /\ \ Alan M Parry <finger me for PGP key> /,_) \ \ (/ \\ fluid@hyperreal.com :65 FD F9 9F F2 23 F8 CF: \) fluid@freezer.cns.udel.edu :80 9C 11 AA 9F 92 0D 27:

Hi,

quoted 9 lines 12. Polygon Window : My Teapot

> 12. Polygon Window : My Teapot > > To be honest, when I first heard this I was very dissapointed. On a > first listen it sounded like a poorly structured, plodding mess of sound > but now im not so sure. Its along the same lines as "Phlid" in many way > using the same or similar farty samples. Ive listened to it many times > now though and I get the get feeling there is genius behind this madness > - its awkwardnes is beginning to make sense in my mind. The only thing I > can really say is to take a listen for yourself.

I am desperately hoping he's going to do a full album with this sort of stuff. At first you may indeed think it is rubbish, a pile of garbage sounds, but it is not. It is genius. It has a lot of logic in it. Btw, a friend of mine says My Teapot consists of only _one_ sound. I'm not convinced yet, and find it difficult to believe (I have the CD, not the vinyl version and no sampler to analyse and play around with the sound), but I know that when my friend says that sort of things he's usually right. What do others here think about this? Could it be possible? Greets, Lawrence ---

fluid dripped onto the idm highway:

quoted 9 lines 5. Autechre : Chatter

> > 5. Autechre : Chatter > > For some reason im not quite clear of, I love this track. It opens with > some nice squirty acid sounds which continue throughout - but then, out > of nowhere, comes this wicked shuffley beat. Builds up a little with some > ascending and descending tones and finally comes to a halt after close to > seven minutes. Two thumbs up. >

Ya! Coming in at about 105 bpm, it's danceable too! I proved it last Saturday night... :) (mixes GREAT with St. Etienne "Like a Motorway" (Autechre 'skin up' mix), and SeeFeel's "Time to find me" (AFX fast mix))

quoted 6 lines 6. Speedy J : Symmetry

> 6. Speedy J : Symmetry > > More good stuff from Jochem Paap who brought us one of the highlights of > the first series. An airy piece full of reaching chords that build up > into a huge amount of colour. Very uplifting. >

Yes, QUITE uplifting! This one builds, too, working at around 130 bpm. -djkc

on Wed, 27 Jul 1994 09:38:43 +0200 (MET DST), "L.J.Pit" <lpit@WI.leidenuniv.nl> wrote:

quoted 1 line 12. Polygon Window : My Teapot

>> 12. Polygon Window : My Teapot

quoted 3 lines I am desperately hoping he's going to do a full album with this sort of

>I am desperately hoping he's going to do a full album with this sort of >stuff. At first you may indeed think it is rubbish, a pile of garbage sounds, >but it is not. It is genius. It has a lot of logic in it.

i agree in full. i still think it's the best track on the whole comp. ok, i also like fitton's metalurg, and seefeel's, balil's, and kirk's tracks a lot, but they're not half as demanding to the listener. my basic criticism about the ai2 comp... *it goes down like honey*. (the cover's really good! can you hear the light?) anyway, there's an interview from about a year ago or so where rdj states that he's very bored with 4/4 beats and that he's experimenting with other times. now here's one track were you get mad when you start to count, and i like that. and i'm sure there's enough material for an album already. people will only have to learn to listen to this stuff... alan's doing the only right thing: trust your heroes and don't give up, listen to it for another time :-)

quoted 5 lines Btw, a friend of mine says My Teapot consists of only _one_ sound. I'm not

>Btw, a friend of mine says My Teapot consists of only _one_ sound. I'm not >convinced yet, and find it difficult to believe (I have the CD, not the >vinyl version and no sampler to analyse and play around with the sound), but I >know that when my friend says that sort of things he's usually right. What do >others here think about this? Could it be possible?

like he sampled a bang on his teapot and that's the sound? well i still don't understand what criteria people use when they judge two sounds to be one and the same. what alterations would be allowed? if it just means "one and the same original sample", that's simple. you can do anything with this, if you take the trouble. if it means "only pitch change", i don't believe it for the pw track, but i'll give it a listen. p.