Cat no: SLM020
Release date: 10/10/11
Get it from: Juno download
If Tangerine Dream had tweaked a Roland TB-303 in 1987 then this startling, engrossing album is how the soundtrack to Near Dark might have turned out. Opener Byebye sets the tone: a luscious electronic rail journey of a tune that conjures images of early morning mist and graffiti-strewn subway cars as nimble snare drums gradually speed up, leaving the city a pinprick in the distance. That same grasp of place and mood runs throughout the album. Though it’s a collection it’s feels like a cohesive statement, and while styles and tempo shift, the 303 remains a constant. Jeeroj’s acid reference points are the likes of Rephlex and Ceephax, his patterns bleepy, squelchy and pin-sharp, but where he truly owns the music is in partnering them with achingly atmospheric synths. Has a 303 ever sounded so reflective and sad as it does on Billow, as full of hope as it does on Emocid, or as bittersweet as it does on the jawdropping closer Now & Then? Meanwhile, on The Laserbots Final Stand (Against the Holodroids), things get almost danceable, while Eeru has the sound of a false dawn at the end of a Romero film, the fuzzed-up synthwork of Goblin being another reference point here. It rules, in other words, from beginning to end. Acid by its very nature isn’t a genre that lends itself to the album, but this tremendous set is an exception – as emotive as any number of M83 records, as crafted as the best of early Warp.
Some links:
A Chronicle of Rabbits 