on the matter of the bochum welt rephlex full-length, _module 2_, i'll have
to admit i was a little disappointed. my introduction to bw was through the
"phial" ep on axodya, and my ongoing interest in his work stems from the
three or so ambient-leaning electro tracks on that ep (i can do without the
nosebleed acid, thank you). i later tracked down a copy of "scharlach
eingang," and was pleasently surprised by the austerity of some of that
material (only later did i discover that the record was "intended" to be
played at 45 rpm, rather than the, to my ears, more natural sounding 33
that made me fall in love with the ep in the first place. does anybody out
there actually _listen_ to those tracks at 45? is this a typo?).
needless to say, i was pretty excited at the prospect of an album-length
release (even as i worried that it would come mastered at 33!). once i
received a copy, i was pleased to find (with the exception of the eminently
skippable first track) the more measured breakbeat side of di costanzo in
evidence. and although much (though by no means all) of the material is
substantially lighter and more sunny-sounding than the other material of
his i'm familiar with, my complaint stems rather from the fact that not
many of the tracks have the feel of finished product: excepting maybe
"radiopropulsive" and "paph," much of the album sounds like old demo
material, nowhere near as fleshed out and dynamic as his earlier stuff, and
a bit too loopy and repetitive to make this album anything other than an
occasionally revisited entry in my "completist" catalog (not of rephlex,
certainly, but of bw). no, i'm not bummed it's only 30 minutes long
(where's it written, etc.), and i don't particularly care that the longest
track on the album is the one i find completely unlistenable. i'm just
dissapointed that what's there that i _do_ like is relatively below the
standard of quality set by di costanzo's earlier work.
if you've only heard _module 2_, i urge you to track some of his other
material (probably by now, unfortunately, quite hard to find) for a better
picture of just how amazing this young artist can be.
just an opinion,
sc