Went shopping yesterday and picked up a few new releases.
The new William Orbit (Strange Cargo/Hinterland) is
great. By far his best. No filler on this one.
1.million town: nice piano work on this work. album version
has a more poppy, but slow hip-hip beat to it. for
some reason song reminds me of Double or Bruce
Hornsby (but significantly more sophisticated
in its instrumenation and complexity and
sans vocals).
2. she cries your name: nice ambient guitar opening
to this one. beat is different but still in
the slow hip-hope mode. vocals repeat song
title, they're not off-putting as in previous
Orbit albums.
3. montok point: another ambient opening, this one
more spacey. suddenly interrupted by guitars
and a house beat. guitar work reminds me of
the stuff he's done with rock artists (stan
ridgway, julian lennon), it adds a nice
edge and makes it more complex than your
average space music with samples.
4. hulaville: another spacey ambient intro, longer this time
and then a beat halfway between break beat and hiphop
nothing on this one sounds new (you've got the droning synth
coming in and out and the more bleepy sounding synth making
more of the melody), but it's put together well.
5. kiss of the bee: minimal synth intro with female
vocals (humming), apl/hia style synth comes in.
faint ragga beat in the background gives way to more
overpowering (ragga influenced) pop beat. and
it all stops for some ambient synths and then
the beat comes back-what can you say? not new
but definitely well produced.
6. el ninjo: a light guitar and beat, faster hiphop beat, but
again this is a light airy tune
7.crimes of the future: again we have the slow beat, and
familiar synth sounds. This one begins to sound a little jazzy
and a little classical at the same time. hard to define.
8. the name of the wave: well i thought this would be the
first one without a beat, but 3 1/2 min. into the song a
slow steady disco beat increases in volume. Track is composed
of repetetive guitar work (more repetetive as in pop
guitar work, rather than minimalist guitar that variates
like with robert fripp or durutti column, but it does
have some of that ambient feel you get with the guitar
work on fripp or durutti column's tunes). some female
vocals, no words, just la la la's and hmmm's.
9. say anything: nice piano and string intro. very classical
sounding. . some synths interupt it with a darker tone
and then some pentatonik sounding beats step in. a few
samples here and there.
10. lost in blue: warbling synths faintly in the background,
some faint guitar work (almost santanna like, but still very
faint) but this fades to some piano and airy synths.
no beats on this one.
11. hinterland: a few, very slow beats (like you would
expect to hear in some movie) and then a nice
repetitive piano interlude, a few notes on the guitar
and a trippy whirling synth bounces from one channel
to the other and then boom, more hip hop beats, though
backgrounded. song has a definite melancholy tone to
it. Perfect movie music. probably my favorite track.
12. the last dream of the mariner: short ambient
closing.
overall i'd say this sounds like tranquility bass, A positive
life, higher intelligence agency, some penatonik and
a little bit of standard pop thrown in to a blender
and served in a very fashionable, minimal style.
how's that for non-descriptive reviews?
Other purchases: Two AD: just when you thought waveform
closed up shop, they finally come out with something
new. A bit of a disappointment. The tracks are your
standard ambient dub fare-nice, but half of these
tracks have already been released. it seems that
the people putting these things together have
a fairly good ear, but are basically rereleasing
import stuff on a domestic comp for wider US
consumption. The 2 APL tracks were taken
directly from the album. The coldcut vs. irrisestible
force cut is the same version as is on the cd single
(Autumn leaves). and the bioshpere track (baby
interface) was taken from their first album.
other tracks include "a voyage on the marie celeste"
by groove corporation (is this from their new album?),
"tortoise" by HIA, "behind the sun (deep ambient mix) by
the starseeds, "triangle" by sounds from the ground (nice
to see at least some new stuff), "late night" by
insanity sect & "sunken garden" by human mesh dance.
Looks like waveform is also releasing TUU's
All our ancestors, they have it listed as backstock
but I have yet to see domestic (US) versions
of this in stores.
Also bought the new (US version) of the Orb album.
I think this is some of the best stuff they've put out
in years (though the blue lamp remix of Blue Room
from the taking liberties comp. is great).
I also found "Red Sun" in a bargain bin. Why is this rumoured
to have an affiliation with Alex P.? Andy Falconer does
some production work on it, but there's not a hint of
Alex in the music or in the liner notes.
Also saw (but didn't buy) the new album by
laswell and terre thaemlitz "web", any reviews
of this one?
niemitz@cats.ucsc.edu