Maybe I shouldn't bother listening to any more guitar albums, as I seem to get more of a kick and a rush from their electronicaltechno cousins. It's got that Orbital feel of life-affirming propulsion. I think it's the sense of propulsion that I like from this music, a sense you get less from the rock and the pop. Rock tends to brood over its bruises and obsess and pick over its mental scabs, the dynamics of tension and release; pop is all about the solar explosion of joy where Apollo and Dionysius get things together and the world pays attention. Techno just moves, onward and onward - you can choose to hitch along as long as you like, but the train will carry on with or without you. Because of that, I think it reminds me most of the global hum of life.
"Meeting Hill" has got all that elegaic tone business that we've come to expect from Norfolk folk. (Only part of that statement is incorrect, but it's a bit part.) Slow-moving ice floes of synth tones, a plucky banjo kind of sound to represent the persistent human element again. It bookends lovely with the opening title track, which has a tight wooziness that paradoxically fills a brainhole I haven't yet identified. And there's that trumpet synth sound that was all over early Aphex.
Abbott seems to have stuff on his mind on "Hand Drawn Maps" as there's a bit more bustle and botheration. "Ovals" has more of thousand yard feel, or something of the sinister laboratory - my third eye muscles are moving in and out. The pace picks up again a bit on "Carrage", warp engines and sweet little reversed noises. Cool, sleek and effortless.
So in all, a third successful piece of album in less than twelve hours. To think I was running out of steam a little. Game is well back on!
Rating: Something Propulsive out of Norfolk
No comments:
Post a Comment