Metamatics - Beatsamatic

XTT Recordings: 2014

Yay! I'm finally reviewing a Metamatics album! Only, this isn't really an album. It's certainly an LP length collection of tracks, released under Lee Norris' oldest of aliases. In fact, the tracks included on Beatsamatic are among the oldest under the Metamatics banner, appearing on vinyl way back in the mid-'90s, via UK based label Clear. You might know of that print as one that nurtured acts like Mixmaster Morris, Jedi Knights, and Doctor Rockit for a time. Technically the first Metamatics album too, A Metamatics Production, though somehow I suspect the follow-up on Hydrogen Dukebox, Neo Ouija, was more substantial in the Metamatics narrative.

I bring all this up because Beatsamatic doesn't seem to exist within Lord Discogs' archives, at least this version of it. And believe me, if there's a body of fellas that would make sure such things are uploaded, it's followers of Lee Norris. There is a Beatsamatic there, the aforementioned '96 twelve-inch, and thus far the earliest Metasamatic item listed. And since I have no way of hearing the original, I can only assume these are the same tracks – sharing some of the original names certainly confirms it.

Okay, so Lee dusted off some oldie works for a digital re-issue. Nothing strange with that, except these aren't even really tracks, at least in the typical since. Rather, Beatsamatic is little more than a collection of electro rhythm loops and tools, seventeen in all and most in the one-to-two minute range. A few reach out to the three minute mark, which makes me wonder if these were on the original Beatsamatic release (not all the track names were printed, apparently). So not an album at all, then, but a sample pack for budding producers and crafty DJs to make use of. And I have this because...?

Honestly, this was part of that MP3 giveaway Mr. Norris did a couple years back via mailing list, and knowing nothing about any of his wider discography, downloaded it sight-unheard. I figured everything among those would be like all the other ambient side-projects he'd offered, hence why I have it now. There's honestly no reason for me to review this though. Well, maybe if you stumble upon it yourself in your Bandcamp wanderings, and wonder what it is before getting it. Just as easy to listen to the samples and read the text blurb to find that out yourself though.

As for why I've kept this, I dunno, maybe I thought I might get some PWoG Psychick Rhythms Vol. 1 enjoyment out of it. Tracks needed to be more than 'tool' length for that though, and only a few get that far.

Or maybe... Maybe I just might use these loops for my own aspiring musical concepts. Snag myself that L.S.G. sample pack off Bandcamp too! Then, mix and mash them together, while throwing in some weird, distorted abstractions of Oak Ridge Boys gospel as backing. Stranger things have been unearthed from Soundcloud, I'm sure.

Various - Balance 026: Hernán Cattáneo

Balance Records: 2014

For a decade, one man, and one man alone, ruled the Renaissance (brand): Hernán Cattáneo. Sorry, Dave Seaman, but when it comes to the '00s, it's hard thinking of the venerated label's many DJ mix collections without automatically thinking of the Argentinian. While Seaman would often have flights of fancy with Global Underground, Hernán stayed true to Renaissance, contributing seven sets until the label... Well, didn't exactly close doors, but certainly aren't in any rush to release DJ mixes anymore either. Where was Mr. Cattáneo to go, then? Start his own label? Ah, he's a pretty popular DJ, but not that popular, such that he transcends his niche. Surely there's another brand that's still chugging along though, that's been quite open in taking in the prog elite? You bet there is!

So finding his way into the arms of Balance was inevitable, but who'd have thought Hernán would go full Thanos and dominate this label too? Not only did he make his premiere on the mainline series, but became the first DJ to have a (proper) repeat showing in the newer Balance Presents sub-series with Sudbeat. And then he did it again with Balance Presents Sunsetstrip, becoming the first DJ to have three outings with the brand. Not even Jimmy Van M accomplished that! (note: Jimmy was indeed the first jock to have a 'sequel' with Balance, Balance Issue N. 10.1, but no one ever mentions that).

You know what else Hernán does here that Jimmy already did before? Include a Boards Of Canada track, is what (that Jimmy, always the trailblazer). Mind, the track included here is probably the most obvious BoC tune anyone could have used (“Orange.”), but if it means we're in for another unconventional mid-tempo outing from one of prog's luminaries, I'm down for that.

It's... not quite that. If anything, CD1 feels like a prog set played at 33, or with a lot of Kompakt influence (hi, The Field!). There's a little synth-pop and indie croon (Weval's Out Of The Game; YEWS' Believe, Belong; Mercurio & Catnapp's On My Way To Hell), but we're mostly in mildly groovy, quite melodic, ultra blissy music here, with occasional quirky flourishes to keep things a little spicy. Just wish much of it would stick in my mind after, beyond a general feeling of “eh, that was nice while it played”. Like, maybe two non-BoC tracks really leaped out for me, but not much else.

And it's weird that such a quibble should hold CD1 back, but not Hernán's second set, because CD2 is exactly the sort of proggy outing where I can't really recall highlights either. Yet, from start to finish, I'm all in for the ride, rhythms powering on with melodic peaks and valleys to spare. Maybe I'm just held in awe that, even this late in the game, Mr. Cattáneo still finds records serving up that vintage prog style that so many (so very many...) thought long since dead and buried. How he do, mang'?

Phantogram - Voices

Indica: 2014

(a Discography Patreon Request from Omskbird)

I may have oversold my enthusiasm for the Nightlife mini-album. Maybe for Phantogram too? I don't dislike anything I've heard, and find their music worming its way into my brain the more I listen to it, but I can't say I want to re-listen to it. They fall into that nebulous blob of genre interest I think of as the 'This Is Fine' bubble – where every critic's 6/10 records reside. Not that I'd give this such a ranking myself (and even if I did, probably a little higher), but as my music collection balloons and grows, things get lost in the shuffle, including the Random Shuffle feature on my PC. So many songs to 'randomly' choose from, yet it never, ever lands on Fu-Schnickens' Sneakin' Up On Ya? What's up with that? Erm, what I'm getting at is, if Spotify Discovery was to discover me some Phantogram, I'd enjoy it, but wouldn't go out of my way to explore their discography further.

Anyhow, we've flash-jumped a few years, and our intrepid Sarah & Josh duo have hit the big-time, in a low-key sort of way. Tons of tours, tons of festivals. Tons of appearances on late night talk shows (so many Jimmy Fallon performances, just... so many). Tons of nods and approvals within their scene (opening for genre icons M83 couldn't have hurt) and from players outside looking in (yes, Big Boi had taken a liking to them by now). You'd almost think they were half a dozen albums deep into their career with this much promotion behind them, and yet Voices is only their second LP, released half a decade after their first. Dang, dawg and dawgette, you gotta' get into that studio and start cranking out some more music stat, lest your set playlist grow old and stale. Maybe get a major label backing your efforts in the process, for that little extra exposure, really go for the 'pop' in the synth-pop.

I feel like I should like this more. The songcraft is more refined, the production is top-grade, and there's plenty of moments that leap out at me as it plays through. The crunchy guitar action in Nothing But Trouble. The buzzy, punchy bassline in Fall In Love. The percussion in Howling At The Moon (yeah, there's trap snares in there, but oh so much more too). Josh Carter's one-the-nose Peter Gabriel wailing in Never Going Home (whole track sounds like a Peter Gabriel tune, for that matter). There's a few moments that strike me as odd choices, like that same buzzy bassline used in the dream pop of Bill Murray - how can I feel bliss and chill with a sputtering transistor in the background? - but it's hardly detrimental to the album as a whole.

Yet, Voices doesn't grab me the way Eyelid Movies did. It's like, in perfecting their genre fusion, it's turned their neapolitan style into a strict vanilla flavour. But one of those good vanilla flavours, like vanilla bean, or dame blanche.

Ylid - Transcend!

Unknown Tone Records: 2014

I kept getting this album and Le Moors' Tendrils mixed up, and not just because they're side-by-side in my current queue, nor because they're both items from Unknown Tone Records. It's the cover art, see, with that muted beige-yellow border, and a blue-something in the middle. Having absolutely no prior knowledge of who either act were, they naturally meshed into my mind as a singular entity, for so long leading me to believe Ylid was Le Moors, and Transcend! was Tendrils. In fact, the only way any of this stood out to me as something distinct from the other is when my new Sony Walkman MP3 player would oddly default first to the Ylid album whenever I plugged it into whatever car I was renting for this past summer's road trips. And boy howdy did it ever leave an impression with that Chant track being the kick off. Ain't nothing like hearing heavily synthy 'aahh's just as you're about to hit the open road, believe you me. Who knew Ylid was a fan of Skin To Skin?

Anyhow, it seems we're back to the outright obscure material again, very little information available regarding Ylid via my usual Discoggian means. One Robert Lyon, he released some half-dozen mini-albums and EPs throughout the mid-'00s, then disappeared for a spell before reappearing out of the blue with this album for Unknown Tone. The only connection I can find between these two periods of Robert's music-making career is Tim Martin, whom he worked with as the short-lived project Somme. Tim Martin's career has been more fruitful, especially as Maps & Diagrams, which led him to Unknown Tone along the way (among other labels I've name-dropped in the past). That good will likely helped give Somme some in with Unknown Tone, after which Robert got to dust off his Ylid project for the label as well. So it does all tie together, guy, but boy, are these ever tenuous strings used.

That's a huge chunk of word count burned getting through particulars, which always means I don't have much to say regarding the actual music within Transcend! It's quite clear Ylid comes from the indie side of things, the Kid A influences dripping throughout the album. Sparse electric and acoustic guitar plucking, fizzy-poppy glitchy treatments, overlaying ambient drone tones, abstract twee electronics, all presented in a sketch-book sort of manner. It's clear Mr. Lyon has lots of little ideas for minimalist compositions, but isn't sure how to present them as a cohesive whole, so here they all are as emerged straight from his brain matter.

For sure there are a few that grab my attention. Thames has a peppy, dreamy pulse going for it, while tracks like Volume Of Air, Overhead and Death Thoughts do the thick, layered reverb ambience nicely. Can't say much else does it for me though, but hey, if you prefer your experimental music from a post-rock angle, this may come off better.

Dr. Atmo - Quiet Life

...txt: 2014

It's astounding that it's taken this long for me to get an album from Dr. Atmo. Chap was instrumental in luring me into the wider world of underground ambient music, first coming across him on the Ambient Auras compilation. Shortly after that, I picked up the Stud!o K7 VHS tape 3Lux-3, of which Dr. Atmo compiled, completing my early ambient indoctrination. You'd think I'd eagerly rush out and grab anything else I saw his name on, but Amir Abadi never made it that simple. He was first and foremost a DJ, often sharing chill-room space with the likes of Mixmaster Morris and Dr. Alex Patterson (what's with the DJing ambient doctors?).

And when he did get behind the producer's console, it was often with others, running through a number of collaborative aliases in the process. Most famous of those was as Silence (and Escape) with Pete Namlook, but also included Oliver Lieb (Java and Music To Films), David Moufang (I.F.), Ramin Naghachian (Sad World), plus many, many more. Of course, since most of these works came out on Fax +49-69/450464, they're all hopelessly obscure, hardly the sort of items a Western Canadian had much chance of stumbling upon.

Dr. Atmo had apparently retreated from productions after the turn of the century, but an unmentionable label managed to drag him back in 2013 with Miss Silencio for a new album called Hush! I'm not sure how that one sounds, since almost all streaming options for it have been scrubbed from the internet. Fortunately, Lee Norris lured Mr. Abadi to his ...txt print for another musical outing, Quiet Life. Ah, sweet, I bet this is gonna' be some ultra-blissy chill-out material, or some melancholic mood music straight from the good ol' archives of Fax+'s golden years.

Nah, brah, Dr. Atmo's laying out them sweet New Age licks on yo' ears, brah. Wait, what? Opener Sunshine And The Sea is pure night-time tranquility, as though you're listening to a harpist gently pluck her strings beside a peaceful pond; y'know, straight up New Age schmaltz. Following that, we have a literal lullaby in Find Your Home, with one Nuwella Love softly guiding your straying thoughts to a light toy-box melody. I cannot deny it does impart childlike whimsy, the sort of trusting surrender one can only feel as a wee babe' with their loving mother cuddling you into a sense of ease. Takes a fair bit of dismantling of one's ego getting there though.

The rest of Quiet Life plays out more as I expected from a Dr. Atmo album (well, about as much as I could have expected given my limited exposure to his productions). Soft ambient techno, some tunes with a dubbier rudder in the rhythm sections (Road), others further treading into the New Age realms (Hang Garden, Subak), plus a good ol' collab' with fellow chill-room DJ alum Mixmaster Morris (Secret Of Mother). Yay, bouncy-happy trippy-dippy musics! What's he been up to, anyway? Ooh, a new Irresistible Force album, I see...

Subotika - Panonija

Motech: 2014

Just how Detroit must an artist be if they are considered Detroit techno? The easy, obvious answer is they must be from Detroit to be considered Detroit techno, and for nearly two decades, that was probably acceptable. No matter how much producers from the U.K., Germany, or Japan emulate the sounds of Motor City, they always bring with them distinct accents to the genre. The societal flattening of our globe, however, has made these lines ever more blurry. Are Detroit transplants making better bucks in the clubs of Berlin still Detroit techno? Could someone move to Detroit, and thus be considered Detroit techno thereafter? And if so, is there a gestation period before they're considered true-blood Detroit? How long would such a gestation period be? One year? Five? More than half one's life?

And then we get into Motech, run by DJ 3000, who most certainly is from Detroit, thus is considered true-blue Detroit techno (or more often, Detroit tech-house). This, despite lending his ear towards the Middle East, giving his tunes a wordly bounce so often lacking in Detroit's future-funk aspirations. The label has taken things a step further with Subotika, a Serbian DJ, and clearly half a globe away from Detroit. Yet here he is with a debut album on a Detroit label, making Detroit techno. Is this enough to be accepted by the staunch Detroit techno purists? Or did they even notice, their heads so far up their rectums they can barely tell the derelict neighbourhoods from the abandoned warehouses? (ugh, not as catchy a phrase as 'forest from trees', is it?)

So the question should be not how Detroit Subotika sound, but how much Serbian influence they bring to the Detroit aesthetic. And to that, one must ask what even Serbian techno sounds like? I honestly have no idea, the closest frame of reference the string of Romanian minimal-tech that brought that scene to new levels of... well, not dryness or sterility, the Germans remaining kings at that. Doesn't matter, as I don't hear much of that in Panonija anyway. A lone track, I'll Be Your, is about the extent of monotonous loopy minimalism we hear on this LP, and as but one cut out of eleven, I'll take that ratio any day. (Fractal a little too, but I like them pads so it gets a pass)

For the most part though, this is about as Detroit techno as you can expect out of a Motech release (do folks expect much from Motech? Are they big players in the Detroit landscape? Must pilgrimage to investigate further). Prozivka supplies some tribalism to the proceedings, Club Door and Evolving the speedy highway vibe (there needs to be an official Detroit techno 'outrun' micro-genre), with various other tracks flitting from dubby thump (From Afar) to simmering space funk (Ronin, Folklore). Can't fault much of what I hear, is what I say, Detroit purism be damned. Still, a little extra Serbian flavour could have helped this stand out more.

Various - Aeon Nemesis

Werkstatt Recordings: 2014

Aww yeah, this is exactly what's lured me into synthwave, isn't it? Retro futurism, cosmic setting, video game cockpit, vector grids galore. And ooh, can't forget that potential narrative brewing. What is the Aeon Nemesis? An inter-dimensional being we must fight? The concept of defeating time itself? Just a couple of cool sounding words slapped together for marketing purposes? So many conceptual possibilities, these synthwave albums, and what better way to truly explore those limitless ideas than rounding up a bunch of producers with similar muses for a big ol' label showcase? That'll get folks digging deeper into the back-catalogue, no doubt.

If you're wondering how I ended up with so many Werkstatt Recordings items, it's because of compilations like this. Get the main feature, plus a bulk deal on CDs with tie-in artists. From this, I nabbed Beatbox Machinery (of course), Toxik Synther, Advanced UFO Phantom, plus a nifty t-shirt with Arcade Metropolis' logo across. Funny thing, regarding that t-shirt. When I wear it to work, a co-worker inquiries whether it's in association with the Arcade Metropolis once located in downtown Vancouver (before the dark times; before the gentrification). Naturally not, but does that ever bring back memories, wandering the once seedier side of the city's urban core, where all manner of strange, darkened places warned that only surly teenagers could enter. To say nothing of the striking mannequins my father would suddenly flush with embarrassment should we venture past on the way to a second-hand music shop. Man, downtown Vancouver was a different beast back when. Not quite Times Square pre-Rudy or anything, but there's a reason many pick-up shots for a Manhattan-based movie would be done in Vancouver.

Anyhow, I had a'lotta anticipation going into this one, as cool cover art is wont to do upon my psyche. You'd think after so many years led astray by dodgy psy trance CDs with cool cover art that I'd learn it, too, can happen in other scenes, especially ones as filled with amateur producers as synthwave. It's not that the music within Aeon Nemesis is piss-poor or anything, but it doesn't lift itself to the standards I've gone and set for myself either. Yes, I've actually developed 'standards' for synthwave – there's only so much time I can give to the endless options this genre now has, and I don't need to waste it on middle-of-the-road material.

A few tracks do offer some nifty ideas, like Beta Grid's hip-hop electro-acid Omni-Halo Matrix, Liege Viper's peppy outrun outing of Rising Star, and Arcade Metropolis' epic excursion of Take Hold Of The Flame - at six-minutes of runtime, it easily outpaces everything else on this compilation. Unfortunately, little else stands out from the synthwave glut, and nothing really highlights or builds upon whatever theme Aeon Nemesis was going for. It's just another collection of synthwave tunes, though did come with some cool extra swag if you jumped on it first run. Werkstatt's swag game is always on point.

Abandoned Communities - Abandoned Communities

self release: 2014

Is this Lee Norris' most obscure project? For sure it's his lone release with Pietro Bonanno, but he's done one-offs with others too. Most of them are recent efforts though, but after so much time collaborating with Mick Chillage and Ishq, it had to be a little refreshing branching out from familiar faces, a couple of which he'd make more than one album's worth of material with. It remains to be seen whether those other collaborations will generate more than a single session, but given it's been nearly a half-decade since Lee teamed up again with Pietro for another Abandoned Communities jam, odds are in the newer cats' favour continued music making.

Heck, this particular release likely came about due to circumstances at the given time, such that Misters Norris and Bonanno couldn't replicate them without some proper planning. During his time in Italy, at some point Lee hooked up with Pietro to record music inside a derelict building in Piemonte; hence, Abandoned Communities. So, like, does that mean if they wish to do a follow-up to this self-titled debut, they'd have to find another derelict building to record and perform in? And what if they wanted to take the concept to a live setting, with an audience? Would they have to find a derelict building that is at least up to code with the local municipality that could hold enough folks without it becoming a hazard? Hey, that'd definitely be taking things back to underground rave roots and all, though this doesn't strike me as a duo that would cater to such a crowd. And wouldn't an audience defeat the purpose of music being made in an isolated, uninhabited setting, all that mass of humanity soaking up the natural reverberations off empty halls and naked walls. So many tantalizing possibilities for a collaboration that yielded a total of two (2) tracks.

Before I get into them, I should provide a little info on the second half of Abandoned Communities, Pietro Bonanno. Not much to go on though, according to Lord Discogs. He self-released a handful of piano albums in the early '00s, made a couple drone ambient LPs for Akroasis and Essentia Mundi in the late '00s, released a couple lengthier drone ambient pieces as AON for Treetrunk Records, and went relatively quiet after, save a lone album in 2015.

Along the way, he paired up with Lee Norris, after which they made two lengthy drone ambient tracks. And yeah, there's not much else to say regarding them. Tsapi de Diablhou reaches the half-hour mark, drawing out long pad tones and uneasy moods. 'Shorter' piece Tem Pledd makes use of bird song accompanying its desolate drones, making for an even more unsettling bit of music (especially when the birds disappear!). This is possibly the darkest ambient I've ever heard from Mr. Norris, as though I'm, well, wandering an abandoned dwelling, ghostly whispers lurking in the shadows. Not one for the laying back for sleepy time, this.

Islands Of Light - Ruebke

Home Normal: 2014

It's always nice whenever I get a timely album to review, and there's no better time than now if I'm gonna' write about music inspired by the autumn falls. The local Vancouver fauna is in full colourful decay now, with leaves shedding all that energy-producing chlorophyll as they hunker down for a bitter West Coast winter (bottoming out at -5 degrees Celsius; brutal!). Most trees in my neighbourhood settle for the yellows and oranges and browns, but there's a few in other areas with a blazing red foliage, nearly blinding my eyes as sunlight reflects off them.

Eventually though, they'll all fall into the streets, forming huge piles that will never, ever be taken away by municipality services. The rains will come, washing the leaf piles onto all the sewer drains, clogging them. Giant ponds – curb lakes, as some call them – will form, as the rains won't stop, and the drains won't get unclogged. Meanwhile, the huge leaf piles on the streets that aren't washed away will start rotting, congealing into festering lumps of slimy biomass, occasionally freezing overnight if the rains let up and the temperature drops low enough. After a time, the city will take the lumps of rot and decay away, but not without leaving a smear upon the pavement, from which will never leave until the spring sun warms and bakes the residue away. I'm not reviewing more dark ambient here, I swear!

I doubt Dino Spiluttini had all that in mind when crafting Ruebke, an album centred around the change of summer to fall, even releasing it on the autumn equinox of 2014. Sure, the shortening days and chillier temperature can bring a sombre vibe to our daily going-ons, but ooh, pretty leaf colours, yo'!

Much of Dino's work entails modern classical with droning overtones, often maintaining a melancholic mood throughout, so an autumn-themed album makes sense within his discography. However, he felt an itch to explore something more piano based, and thus created this alternate alias of Islands Of Light to do so. Yes, in a bizarre coincidence, I got myself another piano album on that Ultimae Records Shop splurge. It was never my intent, but lo', such interesting cover arts, these piano ambient albums have.

It isn't all piano music either, Mr. Spiluttini's classical drone finding its way into pieces like Honung, Heisternest, and Heimfeld. And while gentle, quiet, reflective keyboard playing is the main mood throughout Ruebke, there are a couple chipper pieces too – like busy squirrels rummaging about looking for fallen hazelnuts. Meummelmannsberg in particular sounds like he's using piano strings and even the frame as a form of percussion, and even settles into a string drone before returning with the clanking piano. Why yes this is the most interesting track on the album.

Overall, Ruebke feels like an album best served gazing out into a brisk autumn evening, a cool mist oozing through the firework displays of trees prepping for seasonal twilight. Through a window, that is.

Miami Beach Force - The Revenge

Werkstatt Recordings: 2014

This is about as peak synthwave as you're gonna' find, isn't it? Like, I'm hesitant calling it cliche, because part of the scene's modus operani is taking the cliches we associate with '80s synth music and art, and relishing in them. No Carpenter movie untouched, no hard-boiled cop show with pastel suits left un-homage'd. True, this title's lacking anything pulp sci-fi or purple vector grid based, but when we think of the most Cannon of films out there, it's always cheap, direct-to-VHS action movie sequels involving some form of revenge, typically undertaken by an action force, and half the time set in Miami. Or Los Angeles, if the film crew is really cheaping out on location shoots.

What I find funny about billing yourself as Miami Beach Force is, depending on the era, you could have been a completely different type of music. Obviously if an M.B.F. posse had existed in the Actual Eighties, they'd have been a freestyle act, rockin' the Planet Rock break as everyone from Miami was (or lift it direct from the Kraftwerk's Numbers break, they weren't picky). Flash forward to the Nineties, however, and an act going by the nom de plume of Miami Beach Force could have been anything from Florida breaks to trunk-rattling audio bass to even some Latin infused dance music (reggaeton, maybe? It had started its migration by then). What it definitely would not have been, however, was anything retro-synth related, such sounds utterly unhip and dead throughout that decade. The '00s are trickier to nail, all manner of scenes likely contenders for drumming up a Miami Beach Force handle: electro house, a crunk crew, even an insufferably ironic emo punk band!

In this case though, Miami Beach Force are in fact a pair of Swedish brothers (I'm assuming brothers, what with both having last names of Ekman), and have mostly plied their synthwave sounds through Soundcloud streams. Werkstatt Recordings gave them their first taste of proper label distribution with this particular EP, which was kinda-sorta their second release...? They had enough prior tunes on their Soundcloud to make up an album's worth, but I'm not seeing any other outlets curating them into such (and lord knows Lord Discogs remains indignant with these streaming synthwavers). They've eked out a little career since the release of The Revenge, even appearing on that hip New York City synthwave label NewRetroWave, but that's neither here nor there (what a strange phrase, that).

I wish I had more to say about The Revenge, but I'm still quite synthwave'd out right now, and Miami Beach Force aren't doing anything here that distances them from the pack. It's got a couple moody numbers, a couple high-octane cuts, and it all sounds very vintage and deserving of a mini-movie staring tough, mullety cops out on the beat, serving up justice in a neon-soaked glow. Stylishly. Sexily. While ducking for cover behind white brick walls. And dammit, they really could use a shave. That perpetual 5am shadow must be itchy.

Plaid - Reachy Prints

Warp Records: 2014

I've gotten the Most Important Plaid album (Not For Threes) and the latest (because it was there), but there's a hefty clutch of material between those two points, not much of which gets talked about. You'd think Warp Records would be more generous in promoting the Plaid discography, veterans of their label and all, but then it's not like the duo have the same clout other IDM wonks on the print. Everyone with a passing familiarity with electronic music knows of Aphex Twin, Autechre, and Squarepusher (because journalists keep name-dropping them as bases of comparison... *cough*), but poor Plaid gets lost in the shuffle.

On the other hand, the duo didn't do themselves many favours following the turn of the millennium. Most of their '00s was spent getting into the soundtrack gig, leading some to wonder whether they'd given up on regular Plaid output. An album called Scintilli eventually popped up in 2011, but folks didn't hear much on there that lit their world on fire, plus the duo almost immediately went back to work on another score, so things looked dicey for the Plaid-Heads of the world. I don't know what a hardcore Plaid fan is called. A Flaid?

Scintilli had some supporters, mind you, but it seems with Reachy Prints, the global Flaid brigade finally got the album they'd been waiting on for over a decade, a return to form for the purveyors of clever beatcraft, charming melodies, and all the things Flaids enjoy from Plaid. There are a couple nods to contemporary trends (glitchy rhythms, etc.) but seeing as how Plaid were doing contemporary trends long before they were trendy or contemporary, things fit quite snugly within their larger discography while sounding not a touch out of time. Except maybe Liverpool St, the obligatory orchestral tune that sounds better served in a soundtrack. Just can't shake that itch, I guess. All said, Reachy Prints is a lovely little album, if rather short, but is a nice entry point for those who haven't been swayed by Plaids muse yet, even if they still aren't doing that 'super-serious challenging IDM' stuff their Warp Records brethren are known for.

And that's when it finally hit me as to why Plaid never seemed to get the same name-drops as the Aphexes and Autechres, despite hailing from the same ambient techno lineage: their brand of IDM isn't 'challenging' enough for the true critics and connoisseurs of this scene. You know the ones, who are very serious about how they listen to music, and can only accept it if it's actively fighting the brain's natural biases and disposition towards rhythm and melody. Plaid's music ain't like that, at least to not the same extreme, so of course all the Very Important Talkers aren't always talking 'bout them. Me though, I'm not very important at all, so have no problem talking Plaid, and I'm talking up Reachy Prints if you need a nice, easy, tasty primer into their work.

Neil Young - A Letter Home

Reprise Records: 2014

With all the agreed-upon classics and intriguing second-tier albums already in my collection, I've grown fussier over which Neil Young projects I'm interested in laying down fresh cash for. A new album needs something unique about it if I'm gonna' check it out. Like, I have plenty 'nuff of his standard folksy-rocksy music – give me something on a conceptual level, like a mini rock opera (Greendale), or a different recording session with a famed producer (Le Noise). Playing music inside an ancient recording booth, refurbished by Jack White, as though it's a transmitter to his deceased mum? That'll do.

First, the technology. Always a hound for quirky recording equipment, Mr. White found himself a 1947 Voice-O-Graph to toy around with. For some reason, the specific year was important – maybe he saw a photo of famed blues musician inside one? Whatever the case, these units were more a novelty than anything, where you could go inside and record your very own words or music to vinyl and play back at home, kinda' like those CD booths you'd find in malls throughout the '90s. Obviously, the recording quality of these booths were rather shite, folks more pleased with just having their own material on a record than any practical use of them, though some in the army found them handy ways of sending spoken letters to family back home. Also, bootlegs, especially of banned music in communist countries.

Anyhow, Jack White got himself one (a 1947 one!), and invited Neil over to his studio to check it out. Seeing the archaic contraption got ol' Shakey's muse all a'twitter, and never one to waste a moment of inspiration, got in the booth and started recording some cover tunes. I'm not sure whether he intended the 'letter to mom' idea to be as though he was sending it to heaven, or to the past. Why not both?

And I know what you're thinking: “wait, isn't Neil Young that old coot who's always complaining about sound quality, even taking his music off streaming services because it didn't match the fidelity of his failed Pono project? Why on earth would he make a record that sounds as cruddy as this?” Ah, therein lies the trick. A Letter Home isn't about making some folk covers sound as pristine as modern production can make them, but making them sound as authentic to the recording process that was used. And if that recording process contains all manner of weird warping noises, swooshing sounds, pops and crackles, then that, by g'ar, is what you're gonna' hear.

Oh, the music? Charming, I guess, with covers from Dylan, Lightfoot, Nelson, Springsteen, and a few others I'm not familiar with. This probably would have been an utterly forgotten album were it not for the Voice-O-Graph gimmick, but it does add a strange, otherworldly vibe to the whole process. You can almost imagine this is how music would sound if you could transmit it to another plane of existence.

Various - Hyperdub 10.4

Hyperdub: 2014

You'd think with the camo cover art, the fourth volume of Hyperdub's Tenth Anniversary Box-Set Spectakaganza would be getting down with the jungle scene. It makes sense, after all, UK garage and d'n'b having a mutual understanding of cross-pollination. They hang out at the same venues, where none of that cheesy cracker-trance or lame-o house music is being played, and maybe even share a few musical ideas between each other. Not too much though, as junglists are all about that purity, and UK garage followers... actually, I don't know what they consider 'pure' in their scene, so many mutations having emerged from it since the turn of the millennium. It was all so simpler when all you had was 2-step, grime, and speed. Now, it's all a confuzzled mess, especially after that which is dubstep infected both scenes with varying degrees of interest and suckitude.

Anyhow, all this is moot because the camo is a lie. There is no jungle here, nowhere on either CD of this double-discer closer. Unless the camo is meant to reflect the disguise you didn't see coming at all with a Hyperdub compilation, of a genre that most would figure never had a chance of appearing among future garage, nu-soul, wonky-step, and 'night bus' ambient (dear God, Beatport actually tried to make that a thing!). I am, of course, talking about the one electronic genre to rule them all: techno. Because no matter how disparate, divergent, or unique a sound you may enter with, everyone returns to the mean of making either house or techno. It's an absolutism none can resist, even those dudes with the crappy, choppy beat boxes.

I wouldn't go so far as to call everything among these twenty-eight tracks techno. Some of it is 2-step garage, some of it is bassline house (aka: speed garage without the garage), and some of it is that weirdo electro-grime thing that could only have been made somewhere among the streets of South London, an impossible fusion of so many different things, it's entirely it's own thing (so, future garage, then). It's stuff like that that gave Hyperdub that extra edge among its contemporaries. Well, that, plus all the other things highlighted in the previous five CDs.

Generally though, Hyperdub 10.4 sticks to the stripped-back techno, spiced with that distinct UK urban flavour. Maybe some vintage bleep/rave tuneage (Funkystepz' Vice Versa), or a dubby minimal rinse-out (Fhloston Paradigm's The Phoenix), or Detroit-funk all wobbled up in a ketamine daze (Kode9 & Spaceape's Love Is The Drug). There's quite a bit to take in here, though if I'm honest, the deliberately stripped aesthetic UK garage of this era loves kinda' makes much of this sound like cheap filler on generic techno compilations of the '90s. Not saying Hyperdub should have stayed in their lane, and I'm sure many of these tunes make for fine compliments to any tech-house or techno set. Two CDs of it though, it's just too much for a single sitting.

Various - Hyperdub 10.3

Hyperdub: 2014

Wait, Hyperdub did ambient music too? Well, yeah, guy, of course they did. Doesn't everyone? Mind, what you consider ambient is probably a rather narrow niche of sonic padding and lengthy doodling, but that doesn't mean other scenes can't have their kick at the can with their own beatless interpretations of abstract art music, especially ones where 'dub' production is seen as the norm. While many musicians have taken the original Eno concept down radically divergent paths, that doesn't mean folks in the UK garage scene haven't felt the influence of spacious sounds filling sonic gaps between heavy bangers and the ephemeral void leading you to the Land Of Nod. Even 'gaihr-idge' heads need their comedown music, mate.

Still, it's not like Hyperdub has any dedicated musicians making just ambient music, or even much ambient adjacent music on the regular. Rather, they'll craft little interludes and quiet sound experiments as part of a larger album narrative (or a B2 on a single). As such, most of the twenty-three 'ambient' tracks on offer with Hyperdub 10.3 hover around the two-to-three minute mark, some not even reaching ninety seconds in length. Which urges the question, exactly what the point of this particular compilation is? Like, I get you wanted an excuse to show off more Burial, and certainly his two pieces of At McDonald's and Night Bus were key elements of what made Untold the seminal work of post-clubbing reflective misery that it was. However, sixty-four seconds of chopped pad tones from Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland comes off as redundant filler on a CD that's already technically filled with the filler of other LPs.

Most of these pieces are of such nature, taking the Hyperdub notions of urban digital editing to the realm of wallpaper music. It does provide a unique take on ambient, though it isn't that far removed from the glitchy realm of IDM experiments. It's interesting that two such disparate scenes could arrive at similar sonic points though – gotta' love all that easily accessible production software! Heck, some of this stuff could fit in with the noise camps, like DVA's Reach The Devil, and Jeremy Greenspan & Borys' Gage, which ends the whole CD off with an awful aural assault before abruptly ending. Kewl.

Personally though, I prefer it when things go for the urban-soul Burial mould, as in Cooly G's Mind and Trying, or Lee Gamble's DSM. But let's not leave out the retro-ghetto stylings of Darkstar's Ostkreuz, or the near synthwavey pieces from Ikonika's Time/Speed and Completion V.3. Wait, synthwave, in a Hyperdub collection? What timeline is this?

Then there's more traditional stuff, like The Bug's five-minute long Siren, and the super-traditional stuff, as in Fhloston Paradigm's Liloo's Seduction. Seriously, this production from the King Britt alias brings to mind '70s Berlin-School, and lasts ten minutes in length. On a CD where only three other tracks break the four-minute mark, Liloo's Seduction might as well be a double-LP composition.

Various - Hyperdub 10.2

Hyperdub: 2014

Look, I get all that post-dub-juke-bash-grim-skee-ap stuff is what folks hip to every tiny permutation of UK garage were digging. I mean, it must have been a significant development if Hypderdub was gonna' dedicated a double-CD opening salvo to it. And while there were enough tracks among those thirty-plus that a few got my attention or had my head twitchin' for a mild nod, much of it just passed me by as same ol', same ol', no matter who was chopping and screwing with the hi-hats and snares. It's music that makes better sense when out at a shitty London venue or abandoned Chicago warehouse, where the ketamine is floating through the air like particulates of ashen snow. That is what all those early dubstep parties were like, right? I wouldn't know, I never went to any, not even in British Columbia when the likes of Skream and Rusko were becoming big names here.

Just because it wasn't to my taste doesn't mean it was to no one's taste, and it was popular enough that many indie rags were forced to dedicate detailed write-ups about why this new 'yoot' movement was Very Important to UK's underground dance scene. It's not what attracted me to Hyperdub though, so if the review of Hyperdub 10.1 seems lacking, well, that's your reason. Now, let's move onto the stuff I'm more interested in: the dubby funk 'n soul music of Hyperdub 10.2!

That's right, the post-clubbing, depressive soul of Burial, or the urban grit soul of King Midas Sound, where R&B is taken through the UK underground wringer of lonely nights spent at coffee shops and fish friars before returning to squalid flats barely paid for by a dwindling dole, the unmistakable croon of a lovely lady still echoing in your ears over a cheap, choppy beat. Something like that, I think.

That's the vibe I get from these tracks. Burial's Shell Of Light, DVA's Solid with Zaki Ibrahim and Metrodome, Terror Danjah's You Make Me Feel with Meleka, Fhloston Paradigm's Never Defeated with Rachel Claudio, Morgan Zarate's Sticks & Stones with Eska and Ghostface Killah. Wait, Ghostface is here? Man, them UK grime dudes sure do love 'em some Ghostface. Don't blame 'em, Tony Stark basically bullet-proof no matter where he ends up (UK garage, Eastcoast rap, horrorcore stories, 30 Rock cameos).

And it's weird, because normally I'm not that hype to R&B either. I appreciate its influence and its contributions and all that rot, but generally speaking, I get my musical soul-food from other sources. This Hyperdub stuff though, it hits me at just the right angle, just gritty and askew enough, where the cheap, scattershot production keeps it leagues away from the slick polish of the industrious mainstream material. It's rhythm and blues as the terms should be interpreted, with bare beats and human murk. Still, it's not like I'm actively seeking such music either, Hyperdub 10.2 sating most of that itch until the next King Midas Sound record comes out.

Various - Hyperdub 10.1

Hyperdub: 2014

It's hard to undersell just how Very Important of a label Hyperdub turned out. Even if you excise the Burial factor, it's been home to many producers that helped steer the course of UK garage into ever stranger and weirder future incarnations. Acts like Kode9 (founder), Space Ape, Zomby, The Bug, Mala, Flowdan, Kyle Hall, Inga Copeland, Darkstar, Ikonika, and loads more have made their home on Hyperdub at one point or another. While I can't say I've messed with many of them over the years, I cannot deny the label's earned a pedigree in tapping unique artists that have caught my ear more often than not. Considering the UK garage scene at large is filled with redundant, generic, cheap-ass half-step beats and gimmicky bass noises, that's no mean feat.

I've long considered diving deeper into the Hyperdub discography than whatever Burial and The Bug have released, and while there are a number of Very Recommended records, I wondered whether there was an easier way, a handier way, a box-settier way. Why, hello there, Tenth Anniversary four-volume, six CD collection celebrating the label, how you doin'? Of course, even this set is a little old now, Hyperdub coming upon their fifteenth anniversary in short order. I don't doubt for a second they won't celebrate that, having done a little roll-out of their fifth birthday too, when all they had to their name were some critically hailed works from Kode9 and Burial.

Things really started rolling from there though, hence a quadrupling of material for this box-set. And kicking things off for Hyperdub 10.1 is nothing less than a double-CD of material, with all the familiar Hyperdub names, and then some. DJ Taye! Cooly G! Ill Blu! Mark Pritchard! (!!) Terror Danjah! LV! DJ Rashad! Too many more to name-drop!

As each volume of this box-set focuses on a specific genre or style of music, you bet the first would feature that dubstep action. Or, post-dubstep, I guess – whatever it was folks tried to label the Hyperdub sound (certainly not bland wub-wub). There's also, according to Lord Discogs: Bassline, Grime, Techno, UK Garage, Abstract, and Juke. What, no Trap? Sure sounds like a lot of rat-a-tat-tat hi-hats and snares among these two CDs. Right, trap wasn't really a UK thing, but they had a whole bunch of other names for ghetto beats.

And that's the sense I get from these twenty-three, two-to-four minute tracks, where drums kits, acid boxes and samples are chopped and screwed in such scattershot fashion, it feels like you're hearing music made by the slummiest of musicians too broke to afford any proper production or studio time. Y'know, real music, like punk rock, unfettered and uncut from the soul, technical limitations be damned. Or something.

I dunno. Sometimes I feel journalists made this stuff seem more important because of that supposed authenticity than any actual musical merit. Wouldn't be the first time that happened, especially in UK-Land.

Quantum - Darktech

Werkstatt Recordings: 2014

Here we go again. A Werkstatt Recordings release featuring an artist with this as their lone entry at Lord Discogs, and no bio to speak of. It's starting to feel like sifting through long-forgotten goa trance compilations on ultra-obscure French labels containing a pile of one-offs barely anyone's even aware existed. Or maybe I'm just feeling that way given the nature of this particular item, but it's astounding how many dead-ends I've met finding things out about artists released under the Werkstatt banner. I mean, hey, nice of them giving all these unknowns a little extra promotional buzz beyond whatever Soundcloud and Bandcamp tags provide (d'em stickers, yo'!), but surely both parties could be a little more involved than this? Is it some Millennial thing I'm not aware of, online music makers flaunting any and all traditional modes of distribution and PR? Hey, I'm hip, I'm game to the Streamstep and Cloudcore play.

Fortunately, there's a little more info regarding this Quantum fellow in other outlets, including confirming it is a dude we're dealing with here. No doubt about the sex this time out, the associated iconography featuring a menacing Predator-like creature in shadow, its skeletal features illuminated by kinetic neon light. It's like something straight out of psy-trance's playbook, which makes sense as Mr. Rasmussen freely admits to cribbing ideas from that scene and incorporating them with the trendier new hotness of synthwave. It makes for a weird hybrid I haven't heard before, though edges just enough into the psy side of things I'm surprised Werkstatt picked this up at all. Like, isn't their whole modus operani reviving any and all '80s sounds and vibes, from industrial to synth-pop to EBM to space-synth? What's a decidedly '90s genre doing here? Gotta' corner every niche these days.

Actually, Darktech isn't retro in either a '90s or '80s fashion. Yeah, it features the same style of chugging, 'outrun' rhythm synthwavers love indulging, but Quantum does it in a real gritty, vicious darksynth manner – has Blood Music heard this guy yet? There's also ample sprinklings of the half-step 'metal-thrash' bridge dudes like Perturbator are always doing, which keeps things in the realm of synthwave, I guess. Like, if this was a real psy-trance project, those bridges would have been triplets. Aside from that though, everything else has me thinking psy-trance, from the screaming leads, to the chaotic bridges, to the trippy arps. Hell, I'm even willing to cautiously inch towards calling Worldeater aggrotech, that semi-existent '90s sub-genre of industrial that got all comfy with techno. It's certainly noisy enough to fit the vibe

I'm sure there's some micro-nano-yocto sub-genre of the psy scene that would claim singular ownership of Quantum's stylistic fusion (it's called 'psy-synth', isn't it... *sigh*), which really, really, really makes me want to tap out on all that nonsense. Mr. Rasmussen's just made some nifty tunes with a unique identity that can fit in either camp. It isn't necessary to create a lone island for every style.

Various - The Werkstatt Chronicles - 2009-2014

Werkstatt Records: 2014

I didn't plan on getting this. All I wanted was a nifty Arcade Metropolis t-shirt from the label's Bandcamp. For some reason though, they threw this digital download of fifty-six tracks in with the article of clothing I purchased. That's... a lot more Werkstatt Records music than I'm willing to take in. It'd translate to at least three CDs of material, maybe four, and who wants to read about that much amateur efforts at techno, industrial, EBM, and synthwave?

That isn't meant as a slam. Listening to the early portions of this compilation, it's clear Werkstatt and their artists had some growing to do. The best compliment I can give this stuff is that it wouldn't sound out of place as filler on a late '90s Hypnotic/Cleopatra CD, so take that as you will. I get the sense these musicians were more enamoured with creating clever artist names than the actual music they were making: Boogie Vertigo, Azure Defiance, The Psychedelic Dream Vortex, Droid Sector Decay, Avalanche Reverb Prozac, United States Of Atrocity, Moscow Locomotives, DJs On Acid Destroy Commercial Europe, Synthesizer.

One of the few early acts that does leap out with stronger songcraft chops compared to everyone else is, unsurprisingly, Beatbox Machinery; aka: Toxic Razor, the dude who founded Werkstatt. And when Kriistal Ann is added for their duo of Resistance Of Independent Music, it's clear the two will have a lasting impact on the label's future prospects. It's as though Werkstatt's finally found its footing and ready to take it's next step forward - from digital dumping ground to a place where aspiring, talented producers could make a home. Or use as a launching point for a larger career at least.

Okay, it wasn't all at once. Kriistal Ann doesn't make her first appearance until track fifteen, and for many tracks after, it's still shaky ground between improved, interesting synth music and noisy, nonsensical industrial waffle (got the dreaded “TURN THAT SHIT OFF!” while playing it at work). Is it any surprise that as Werkstatt steadily inches towards synthwave, the better the overall product sounds? Or, I dunno, maybe there's folks who prefer the aggro industrial stuff over the chipper, poppier synth music – I don't have enough involvement with the industrial scene to make that informed an opinion on what's represented here. It could be top-tier tuneage for all I know. I'm sure, however, we can all agree that EBM is the fun compromise between these two worlds!

Once The Werkstatt Chronicles passes track thirty, the synthwave really starts taking over, though EBM still gets a few looks in too. Hey, GosT is here! And there's Kriistal Ann's darkwave solo stuff. Ooh, I recognize more of these names: Ghost Patrol, Radio Poltergeist, Dan Terminus, Resist Concept. But yeah, most of my Werkstatt exposure comes after this period of the label's lifespan. T'was an interesting jaunt into their early years, but it isn't the music that lured me into their fold in the first place.

Geometry Combat - Tanz Der Schatten

Werkstatt Recordings: 2014

The appeal of ancient industrial is just how grimy it sounds compared to most music. You get the sense it's a total grass-roots scene, musicians with little technical know-how making use of whatever third-hand gear they could get their hands on. Obviously this isn't always the case – ain't no way Trent Reznor is forced to cheap-out on his studio any more – but like its sister scene punk, industrialists take pride in how under-produced their music comes across.

It does make me wonder, though, whether it's grown ever more difficult to 'keep it real'. For sure it's possible if you use authentic gear from the '70s and '80s, but that shit don't come cheap anymore, and modern versions will always carry some upgraded polish with them, no matter how much gravel you think throwing in the chassis will help. Compounding things is the fact so much music production is done digitally now, with no amount of plug-ins hiding the fact that the music's being made on a computer. Okay, so anything electronic is technically being made on a computer, but you know what I mean – circuit boards with knobs versus DAWs. It just seems to me that EBM dudes, dudettes, and everyone in-between have to work harder than ever to sound authentic, lest they find themselves in the realms of futurepop.

Not to say Geometry Combat is one such chap dealing with such issues, as such. I honestly had little success finding any information about him (I'm assuming He, because it's quite clearly a very masculine voice going on about darkness and hammers and shit), not even a name included with liner notes, Bandcamp write-up, Lord Discogs text, or Facebook blurb. Thus, I'm not sure what his set-up is. I wouldn't be surprised if he's using old-school machines for his EBM beats, but man, hearing how low in the mix these vocals are, I'd almost be more impressed if he's using computer programs to get that sound. Anyone can bellow and snarl into a crappy mic and claim it's being vintage – try doing it with spiffy-new devices and get the same result.

When not pitting the fates of Pythagorean Theorems and Arc/Circumference Ratios against each other, Geometry Combat specializes in a fun blend of EBM and darkwave. We get the aggressive sounds of the former, with lyrics that come off more melodramatic as befitting the latter, titles like Silent God, Darkest Sins, and Deadly Armour Ceremony pretty clear in their intent. A couple pure EBM cuts make their way in the back half (Body Hammer, Striding Command), which is a nice little monotony breaker.

Most tracks are brisk and to the point, as good EBM usually is. The big outlier is a seven-plus minute long 'downtempo' cut called Teeth Of Steel Grasp At The Barriers Of Humanity, which sounds closer to the realms of proper industrial than everything else, sludgy, meandering with growling vocals and crusty guitars. All a bit too pretentious for my liking, though.

Lee Anthony Norris - Italian Works

...txt: 2014

First you find the free downloads from ever-awesome portals like Ektoplazm or Bandcamp, and you think it's fine, because you're not going back on your word about paying for MP3s. Then they start offering older, out-of-print items up for free download, for being so supportive of their efforts, and you go along with it because you're still not paying for MP3s. Then come the discounts on digital-only items, and you figure since those won't ever see a hard-copy release, what's the harm in indulging in those too? And before you know it, you've succumb to the seductive dance of digital consumerism. Not all at once, and not instantly to be sure, but here I am, a decade removed from an 'epic rant' on TranceCritic about never buying MP3s (never!), eagerly buying in. So it goes.

Anyhow, when Lee Norris set up his ...txt print, he spent much of that time also working on various musics with various musicians, flooding the ambient market with a ton of new albums in the process. I've even reviewed some of those (Autumn Of Communion, Moss Garden, Nacht Plank, that shorty Porya Hatami collaboration). Right, much of what I have covered mostly came care of Carpe Sonum Records, if only because their CD runs aren't quite as limited as ...txt's usually are. There's still a chunk of albums in this period that I haven't picked up, so when Mr. Norris provided a good-will free download of his 2014 2CD compilation Italian Works - essentially a summation of his work during this period – how could I refuse? It didn't matter I already had some of this stuff elsewhere, it's an out-of-print ambient double-LP, for free download! Can't... resist...

Along with the above mentioned projects, also within Italian Works are Ashtoreth's Gate (Norris and Craig Murphy), The Ashes Of Piemonte (Norris and Wil Bolton), Solipsism & Nacht Plank (Lee and Craig again), and The Angling Loser (Lee, Wil, Porya, Martin Hirsch, Shintaro Aoki, and Sir Cliff). Fifteen tracks comprise both CDs (or full download), ranging from three-and-a-half minutes to a couple twenty-plus minute compositions. It's also all arranged into a mix of sorts, though as we're dealing with ambient here, it's more like faded blends between tracks rather than any layering.

And if you're familiar with Norris' style of ambient in recent years, much of Italian Works shouldn't come of surprise. There's the stuff with field recordings coupled with gentle melodic meandering - The Angling Loser's Dawn, Ashes Of Piemonte's Ordained By Winter's Fire, Solipsism & Nacht Plank's Lush, Polite, Heroin... almost every track really. Other pieces get more droning and abstract (Ashtoreth's Gate's When We Return) or go wide-screen with layered pad work (Moss Garden's Daily Catachresis), but about the only real differences between everything is what unique aesthetics Norris' collaborator brings to the plate. It all makes for a tidy bluffer's guide to his recent output, but lacks the diversity to elevate it beyond more than a pleasant, diverting compilation.