Phynn - C U Smile (Original TC Review)

Black Hole Recordings: 2007

(2022 Update:
I know I seem to say this often about trance artists from the '00s, but seriously, what happened to Phynn? He seemed to do everything an up-and-comer of the Dutch eurotrance scene was supposed to do to have a lengthy career. Have a couple break-out singles playlisted by the Very Important trance DJs of the day, get his name out into other ventures such as DJing, get some snarky blog reviews written up leading to a debut album (okay, maybe not that one), and then... Profit, I guess?

Honestly, having listened to said debut and only album, Metamorphosis, I'm not surprised Phynn's future prospects sputtered. The first half, which includes C U Smile, is quite the blatant jump on Sander Van Doorn's brand of acid-fart bosh (the back-half is more traditional euro-trance fare, but only marginally better). Who knows if it was Mr. Jager's intent, or Black Hole Recordings forcing him to go in a new direction the scene was desperately hitching their wagon on, but regardless, it proved a musical dead-end for all involved as the new decade took hold. Phynn eventually left Black Hole, started his own short-lived digital print Lunary Records featuring music with a tougher, deeper techno edge, but all other social media and Discoggian info on him dries up by 2016.)

IN BRIEF: Marco V lite.

These past couple years have seen quite a few trance producers fleeing their past to embrace the chunkier nu-electro sound. Ferry Corsten, Marco V, Cosmic Gate, just to name a few. However, their transition isn’t terribly surprising, as these folks had done all they felt they needed to in that old sound. They’d prefer to move forward rather than stay in the past (even if moving forward doesn’t always translate to producing better). What does come as a surprise though, is seeing some of the names of the new generation of trance already doing the same.

Finne Jager - aka: Phynn - was early-on expected to be part of this fresh breed; his productions and DJ mixes seemed to indicate he’d be perfectly fine to carry on the Dutch trance mantle. Heck, just a year ago he was tapped to take on the long running In Trance We Trust series, a release filled to the rim with epic anthems. Surprisingly, his first single in nearly two years (not including two download-only tracks from last year, but then it's still up in the air whether those count as true singles [2022 Edit: oh, 2007 Sykonee, you silly git]) finds the young man instead leaving that sound behind and joining the ranks of producers making march-a-long tech. Is this a case of bandwagon jumping? Or perhaps Finne’s already bored with epic Dutch trance and is also looking to try something different. Fair play if the latter is so, but his offering isn’t much to get excited about.

C U Smile does everything we’ve come to expect from tracks like these, with very little innovation to distinguish from the pack. As mentioned, the rhythms are standard march-a-long in nature, causing the track to plod for large chunks at a time. The main hook is very simple, but does benefit from playing in a slightly different time signature, thus helping turn your head somewhat. Beyond that, this is a bland, forgettable techno; his club version is the better offering by a significant margin. There’s more energy and doesn’t completely rely on the main hook to sell it, with additional hooks doing a nice job between the peaks. Mind, it’s still an overly simple track, but at least doesn’t plod like the original does.

DJ Preach brings chunkier rhythms with his remix, letting his techno influences overtake the track with workable results. Aside from the additional sounds though, there isn’t much difference between his and Phynn’s club mix. Well, aside from an extended breakdown where Preach stretches the riff out somewhat, but it’s nothing more than a novel trick that adds little.

Ultimately, considering how much potential he showed in the past, C U Smile is something of a disappointment from Phynn. The track is functional but functional is very, very common in the world of dance music, and Mr. Jager hasn’t produced anything here that demands to be snatched up. It’ll work in your sets but you could find any number of tracks that do the same.

Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic.com, 2007. © All rights reserved

ACE TRACKS: November-December 2021

And... breathe again.

Good? Okay, where are we then? Last month got off to a pretty good start – creating a pre-published backlog certainly helps – but once again, life in the Real World gets hectic and distracting. I was determined to get that pile of 'B' albums done before the end of the year though, and by g'ar, I got there.

Which leaves me ready to review the final clutch of albums I'd like to call the “Before Blog Re-Launch Block". Yep, this is actually, for realsie-reals, honest-to-God the last little bit of my old music collection within sight, a small pile of 'C' albums left un-listened to since 2012. A whole decade ago. Good gooey gravy, who'd have thought I'd still be doing this so many moons later. What even was life that long ago now?

Of course, even after I get through this, that doesn't mean I'm finished reviewing my entire music collection, oh no. There's all the stuff I've bought from this past year (it's... a lot), and who knows how much more in the coming years hence. So long as musicians I like keep releasing music I like, this blog will never end, mwa-hah-ha! Or until the interweb as we know it ceases to exist, rendering text-based interactivity moot. It could happen, in my lifetime. Anyhow, here's the ACE TRACKS from the final two months of 2021:


Full track list here.


MISSING ALBUMS:
Private Mountain - Blue Mountain
Pentatonik - Anthology
Various - Adykt
Pete Namlook / DJ Dag - Adlernebel
Various - 001005
Intergalactic Federation - 1/2

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 0%
Percentage Of Rock: 20%
Most “WTF?” Track: Nothing overtly egregious, though I'm sure the excessive amount of Neil Young will make some go cross-eyed.

Boy, good thing I did extend this playlist across two months, 'cause ain't much from November available on Spotify. Darn deliberately obscurist ambient techno labels. If you can get your Local Files to fill in the gaps, the full playlist runs nine hours, mostly thanks to a whole pile of double-digit breaking tracks. Guess it helps in pacing out all the Neil Young music, though alphabetical ordering somehow lumped a whole bunch of 'em at the end. Kinda' funny, that.

Ciro Berenguer - Bruma

Slaapwel Records: 2020

I wish Slaapwel was more fruitful in their musical endeavours, rather than taking the Rip Van Winkle pace their sleep-based manifesto so religiously follows. They've released but three items since I last splurged on them (if you can call scooping up three CDs a splurge), which is about on pace for their 'one album per year' rate. Oddly, their latest one from Kreng + Svarte Greiner, The Night Hag, seems like something more suitable for a dark ambient print than one promoting a well rounded circadian rhythm. Sleep terrors, really? Good God, maybe I should just start springing for digital copies of Slaapwel's older, long out-of-print items. Ooh, The Boats...!

In the meanwhile, let's check out one of the few recent Slaapwel releases I did spring for, this here Bruma from Ciro Berenguer. According to Lord Discogs, he is ...um, almost nonexistent, it seems. The only other record to his name there is El Mar De Junio (Eilean 64), released on Eilean Rec. I'm not familiar with that label, though do recognize a few names there (James Murray, Twincities, Wil Bolton). They also apparently had something of a gimmick to their releases, strictly one-hundred items, based upon points on a map. Man, and I thought the collector's OCD was strong with Neotantra.

Digging a little deeper, I did find Ciro's Bandcamp, which has one other album, and contributions to other odds 'n ends scattered about. Seems more of a local talent within Barcelona's music scene then, a musician mostly content remaining on the periphery. I suppose that's why I found this write-up for Bruma so amusing: “Listeners familiar with Berenguer’s previous work will recognize his typical minimal style with fading, constantly evolving themes.” Just how big an audience does Mr. Berenguer have such that they'd immediately recognize specific musical traits anyway? Then again, it's not like Slaapwel Records, a tiny print based out of Belgium, would have potential audiences on the other side of the globe in mind when writing their Bandcamp blurbs. And yeah, that Eilean record definitely had some abstract minimalism going for it, a far gap of songcraft compared to the more traditionalist guitar folk LP he put out many years before.

In typical Slaapwel style, Bruma features a single thirty-five minute long track titled Los Entresijos De La Noche, or “The Ins And Outs Of Night”. It, too, mostly goes for minimalist sonic abstraction, gentle guitar plucks and manipulated xylophone tones as fed through tape loops and field recordings. At many points, the piece almost fades to nothing but echoing embers of melody, as though you're finally nodding off for the night. This being over a half-hour of improvisation though, the music does re-emerge for more tranquil bells and the like.

And if I'm honest, I have a difficult time keeping attention for the duration, the lethargic nature of Ciro's songcraft here extremely effective in lulling me into a state of synaptic inertness. Another successful outing from Slaapwel Records, in other words.

Lucette Bourdin - Breath Of Grace

Dark Duck Records/Fantasy Enhancing: 2012

Back to Bourdin, then. Huh, took a little longer than I thought it would. Like, a box-set with twenty CDs in it is gonna' take up hefty chunks of my alphabetical queue no matter where they're slotted, but I suppose it shows just how large the queue currently is regardless. Dealing with another box-set between Ancient Memories and this probably didn't help with the gap.

Breath Of Grace has the distinction of being the final album of Lucette's work, released well over a year after her passing. There's actually a number of such albums, including A View From Afar and the four-LP Nordic Waves set - yes, they're all accounted for in this box-set. While it's not surprising that she'd have some music in the vaults, I do wonder what the process in releasing the posthumous albums was. Were they already in the works, and just never got to see a proper release before passing on? Did someone within her estate cobble together assorted unreleased tracks on her behalf? I suppose it doesn't matter in the long run, but whenever we're dealing with ambient music of this sort, it's nice to have some inspirational frame of reference going in. Perhaps one need not delve too deeply into such concerns, but it cannot be denied her experiences offered a unique perspective on reflective music, tragic though it may be.

If there is a theme to Breath Of Grace, it's that of entering a calming state of mind. While opener Turbulent Seas maintains a typically droning style of ambient tone, it's far from a relaxing sort. Almost ominous with heavy, spacious synth swells, impossibly distant sounds echoing from the furthest reaches of one's memories. Always those nagging reflective moments, when gazing upon foggy coastlines through cottage windows.

Waters Of Life goes more minimalist, synth drone supporting burbly, dubby field recordings, letting you feel more lost in the moment rather than trapped in memory. Following that, the titular track is pure synth pad drone, layered to such a degree the timbre is rather muddy. Can't help but keep thinking of fog while listening to this. But hey, things seem to pick up a little with Quiet Cats, a lighter tone and brighter synths emerging from the haze. From there, tracks like Finding Peace and Setting Sun only grow brighter, the former even dipping rather close to the realm of New Age with its shimmering angel bells. The relatively short closer Remembering thus feels more like a coda to Breath Of Grace, having settled into some sense of tranquility despite whatever was troubling the self at the start. And hey, a little light Arabian synth noodling in the middle of it too.

I almost feel like I'm overselling this album, with such a expansive write-up of what goes on. Eh, gotta' burn word-count some way, but as far as ambient albums go, Breath Of Grace is a nice little offering of such. Will the rest of Lucette's works compare? Stay tuned...

Private Mountain - Blue Mountain

Neotantra: 2019

Fun thing about following labels will always be discovering new artists. True, I get these Neotantra albums because my OCD compels me to grab the gradient cover art, lest my CD collection look incomplete, but the music's usually pretty darn good too. And while many familiar names have released here, several more are complete blanks to me, my purchasing decision little more than having a good hunch over some audio clips. So it went with Private Mountain, a name I'd never seen before, but ooh, that's some nice, soothing, minimalist ambience coupled with field recordings. Sure, I'll give it a go.

Then I look into the names behind the moniker, ones Dimitar Dodovski and Toni Dimitrov. I'd love to claim I recognized them straight-off, but no way I could have, even if I have encountered Dimitar before. In fact, the project he was on was quite instrumental in opening the doors to where my ambient techno interests currently lie. It was a pairing with a chap by the name of Lee Norris, under the pseudonym Moss Garden.

Yeah, that Moss Garden. You'll forgive me for not immediately remembering that factoid, for Mr. Dodovski's career was still in a relatively embryonic stage back then. He's put out much music since though, including a team-up with Toni and Martin Geogrievski as Post Global Trio. They've put out some half-dozen albums now, but on the side Dimitar and Toni started another project as Private Mountain, this here Blue Mountain the debut.

Taking in some Post Global Trio works for a frame of reference, I can confidently claim that Private Mountain sounds quite similar, just lacking any rhythmic momentum. The abstract ambience, the immersive field recordings, the hazy feelings of memories past, wandering back road regions in solitude. Like, a hillside path, all to yourself. I just find it amusing that two-thirds of a mostly ambient project took it upon themselves to make extra-ambient music.

Opener Ainmount 1 mostly maintains a fuzzy, day-glo vibe, while Ainmount 2 opts for more night-time tranquility, a surprising contrast so early in the album. Usually you wait for the end to go twilight. The titular third cut really gets my Andrew Heath triggers going, early dronescapes gradually melting into sounds of idling about cottage dwellings. Just A Strange World gets a little fancier with the drone effects, while the eponymous track (longest at over twelve minutes) gives more of a Boards Of Canada interlude vibe. If BoC ever included sounds of running water while exploring deep caverns, sounds echoing across damp stone walls, that is. A tidy, tranquil closer in Coming Back Home wraps things up, and if you don't feel utterly blissed out after listening to Blue Mountain, I really don't know what else to say.

I suppose the only quibble I can offer is this album's rather short. Six tracks, only half of which break six minutes, doesn't feel long enough wandering this mountain. Pretty sure I said the same of Moss Garden too, heh.

Unusual Cosmic Process - Between Continents

AstroPilot Music: 2016

It's been a spell since I checked out AstroPilot. Let's see what he's been up to! *clickity-clickity clack* Ooh, started his own label. With lots of artists getting rep' on it. Most of which I'm not familiar with in the slightest. Welp, better get to it. *zzi-i-i-ip* What? That's the sound of me opening my digital purse to splurge on some new music. Why, what'd you think that bit of onomatopoeia was?

So, Unusual Cosmic Process (or UCP from here out, because whoof, that's a mouthful). This is a project from Alexander Akopov, who's been making music in the psy sphere for the past decade. A few aliases had some traction on Ovnimoon Records (Optical Report, Psypheric), but UCP has been the most fruitful of them all (so sayeth Lord Discogs). Makes some sense, this alias being his primary outlet for music on the down beat. Of the twenty items Mr. Akopov has released as UCP, the bulk are LPs. His early ones floated about different labels (Ovnimoon, Uxmal, Sentimony, Gliese 581c), but has mostly settled in with AstroPilot Music for the last while. This here Between Continents was his debut with Dmitriy's print.

Whenever a producer starts their own label, the tendency is to cultivate artists of similar style, so I wasn't surprised that UCP would sound somewhat like AstroPilot. I didn't expect his sonic palette to go quite so opulent though, exceeding even the cosmic grandeur of the Solar Walk series. Mr. Akopov says this album's meant to be something of a sight-seeing tour, taking in various vistas of our planet from its highest regions to its deepest depths, carried along by acoustic airships. Sounds like fun, and opener Acoustic Levitation certainly holds little back in its lift-off, wide-screen synth pads with spritely treatments such that even 36 would get weak in the knees. A psy-chill rhythm joins the action midway through as the track keeps building and building until... oh, it just kinda' ends on pads, a bit abruptly at that.

Wendall Sea carries on with the extra-ultra backing pads, with a heavier beat in support, but mostly plays out like the opener. Sekki opts for something a little more mysterious (bathyscaphe submersion will have that effect), while Atolla Wyvillei... gosh, this sure sounds a lot like Weddell Sea again, the same beat and everything. Granted, the psy scene often recycles rhythms, but this is practically a copy-and-paste here. Not that the tracks are bad, it's just a very apparent thing with two so close together in an album.

As Between Continents plays out, it never lets off the gas pedal in sonic splendour – even the Ambient Remix of The Clouds has an aggressively groovy bassline. It's almost too much, if I'm honest, seldom letting the listener take a breather, save at the start of every track. Imagine the tour-guide insistently telling you how awesome all these sights are, when I sometimes just want to lay back and take them in at my own leisure.

Robert Rich - Below Zero

Side Effects: 1998

I bought Equal Stones' Below Zero from Ultimae's online shop. When I received my order in the mail, I somehow ended up with two albums with that title, the other this particular item from Robert Rich. How did that happen? Did the folks at Ultimae HQ not know which Below Zero I wanted, and hedged their bets? Or did they figure, if I wanted one Below Zero, why not have another? This isn't the first time I got a 'bonus' disc from them either, the last time introducing me to Simon Heath's Krusseldorf project. That led me to some... interesting music tangents, believe you me.

And honestly, it's about time I dive into Robert Rich, isn't it? I've known of the man's seminal contributions to the minimalist side of ambient drone works for a while, but like others in this field (Steve Roach, Vidna Obmana), his catalogue runs vast and ancient. Where does one even begin with such a discography? Agreed upon classics? Multi-disc retrospectives? Blind leaps based on eye-catching cover art? Yes to all, but I'm starting out with the 'unexpected extra CD from online order' method.

I've also kinda-sorta stumbled upon a compilation at that, Below Zero a gathering of a half-dozen tracks from other compilations Robert contributed to. Simple idea, but quite odd in execution, as this comes care of Lustmord's industrial print, Side Effects. The two had collaborated for the Stalker album, but Rich was mostly a Hearts Of Space kind of ambient composer, with little dabbling in the darker side of the genre. There must have been enough stray works out there for such a collection as this though, but releasing it on Side Effects, a label shutting its doors so shortly after? Was no one else willing to do the deed of scouring obscure ambient compilations for Robert Rich material?

Anyhow, Below Zero opens with Star Maker, a multi-part cosmic dark drone piece lasting over twenty minutes that traverses cosmic desolation before morphing into something a little less sinister. Feels like we're bearing witness to the birth of a solar system, or at least its primary life-giver. Eleven-minute follow-up Dissolving The Seeds Of A Moment (apparently never released before) goes for the atonal assault of dark drone, the sort of sound that's right up Lustmord's alley. A Flock Of Metal Creatures Fleeing The Onslaught Of Rust and Termite Epiphany mostly follow suite, though are shorter excursions, and even have moments of respite in their runtimes.

Then things take a turn for the ...benign? I wouldn't go so far as to say Liquid Air is all calm and soothing as traditional ambient can go, some of the pad layers still somewhat discordant. That gentle keyboard tone though, acting like a settling rudder for the ominous feels lurking about, does ease the frazzle mind-state some. And despite a rather melancholic mood, Requiem's voice pad timbre almost sounds like an exhale of pent-up emotional tension. Goodness, a 'journey' album, out of a compilation? Wonders never cease.

Equal Stones - Below Zero

Glacial Movements Records: 2019

We inch closer to Proper Winter now, the weather growing ever colder in our annual tilt away from solar warmth. Yes, even my seasonally smug corner of the world. Atmospheric rivers aside, we've been extra cool 'round these here parts, dipping below freezing temperatures. Sometimes. Usually at around 4:14am. By about one or two degrees. Honest, that's unusual for us, plus counts as a tie-in to this album's title and theme!

Yes, in my ceaseless need to chill the f' out, I've taken the most logical step in scoping out another of Glacial Movements Records items, an album titled Below Zero. Why, it even has a derelict boat on the cover art! Well, maybe not completely derelict, but certainly in no condition to travel, ensconced within foggy frost as it is. Interestingly, despite growing up in a port town well into the northern latitudes, this is not a scene I'm familiar with. In fact, that town is somewhat famous for having one of the deepest harbours that never freezes year round, which is handy when you want to move cargo without running into hull-carving islands of ice. Now if only it wasn't located in such a remote part of Canada's west coast, maybe it'd have grown larger than it did.

Anyhow, Equal Stones. One Amandus Schaap, he started out making droney, melancholic ambient music for the obscure net-label Hidden Vibes. Well, not that obscure anymore, as a few noted names have had releases out on it (SiJ, The Green Kingdom, Chihei Hatakeyama, Halftribe). They also aren't strictly a net-label anymore either, having gained enough clout to offer limited CD runs as well. Equal Stones was there at the beginning though, and remained fairly exclusive to Hidden Vibes for half a decade. He started branching out into darker strains of the genre as Death Star, and has now (well, a couple years ago) hooked up with Glacial Movements for a conceptual album of ice-cold drone.

Below Zero opens up with Presence, and if that doesn't immediately trigger feelings of unease that lumbering icebergs are about, the bitter cold sounds definitely will. With sounds of biting winds and grinding ice enveloping your headspace, Amandus does an effective job in putting you in a most inhospitable of arctic clime's. Even Ugasanie would shiver.

It's mostly industrial drone-tone from here on out, which is fine for what it is, but I feel loses some of the album's theme along the way. It's not until the final sixteen-minute track Fragmented Ice that things get back to something truly icy. Aside from an intermittent 'exhale' from sickly machinery, we're treated to desolate white noise for many minutes. Discordant tones and flickering electronics gradually swell in prominence, even getting on some '70s style flange. It's like being isolated in some remote science station, adrift on islands of gravel and ice. And always that heavy exhale, as though the deep freeze makes the simple act of breathing torture. Maybe best to hibernate, for a while...

Various - Balance 005: James Holden

EQ Recordings: 2003

So this was one of the big ones. Even if the music didn't hold up (spoiler: it does), it cannot be denied how much James Holden's contribution to the Balance series marked a prominent shift in the way the prog-house series, um, progressed. Prior, each volume mostly stuck with the dark, tribal prog of the era, save a single CD flirtation of prog-breaks by Phil K. After, Balance became known as the premier DJ mix series, where disc jockeys could indulge themselves with unconventional sets. Not to say that happened all the time, but such a rep started here.

Beyond that though, James' set marked a radical shift in the scene at large, ground zero for a splintering that would be felt for much of the next decade. Not only did Balance 005 firmly state the old Bedrock Records sound was done and dusted, but gave us a taste of what was to come. Obviously the Border Community style from Holden and his cohorts is what gets prominent focus here, but there's ample examples of the sort of prog folks initially expected of James, and got co-opted by Coldharbour instead. Grumbly basslines, side-chained melodies, poppy vocals, and whatnot.

Nowhere is this more apparent than right in the middle of CD1. Leading up, there's still a sense of the dark, dubby prog lurking about, even if a track like Petter's All Together enjoys throwing some robo-clank into the mix. Infusion's rub on JASEfos' Do What U Want is pure proto-McProg though, with a big vocal supported by a rumbly groove, the sort of tune you'd almost expect Holden to lead into his own Nothing (93 Returning Mix). Instead, it goes into the twee electro-fuzz of Nathan Fake's Outhouse (Fluffy Mix), its rhythm nothing more than twitchy clicks n' pops. And while the more traditionally thumping original version follows, this debut from Fake is basically what Border Community would heavily promote for much of its run. As I say, quite the little moment of contrast in hindsight.

Anyhow, disc one plays out with more of this push-pull between old-prog and BC-prog. Cannot deny I tend to favour the old (mmm, PQM cut), but Holden ends things off pleasant enough. CD2 kicks things off with some sleaze house in Meek's Happy (because electroclash was still kinda' a thing in 2003), then we're right back into more dark, dubby prog, with twinkly melodies sprinkled about (Epsilon 9's Lifeformation; Ficta's Eli; Kosmas Epsilon's rub on FC Kahuna's Hayling ...why does it sound like my CD's skipping during the breakdown?).

There's some bits and bobs of other sounds thrown in (acid in his own The Wheel, future-shock electro in Carl Finlow's Ghetto Server ...was Anthony Rother not available?), and Holden takes a long lead-down for the finish, each track growing ever more chill and Border Community-ey after the other. I honestly find my attention drifting, but only because the mid-set peak was so high. I'm not ready to come down yet, Mr. Holden!

Derek Carr - Arrival

FireScope: 2021

Man, it feels good seeing Derek Carr getting his due. Not that I can claim to be some long-standing fan of the man's work, as if I've been listening to his music since the Copper Beech E.P. I only stumbled upon him by happenstance with The Digital Space Race, and while enjoyed that album, didn't reconnect until he connected with FireScope for Distant Systems.

He's released a fair amount of material between those moments, but it seems his profile's quite taken off since releasing Contact on Subwax Excursion (Model 500 artwork nod likely helped). Many EPs on many labels have since come out, plus a four-record retrospective on For Those That Knoe, and man, have the plaudits ever blown up on Discogs. Seems Mr. Carr felt it was a good time for a revisit to FireScope, a full LP outing in Arrival. Which means two vinyl records. Or two CDs etched with vinyl grooves. FireScope sure loves its FOMO-triggering mediums.

Let me get this out of the way: if you're familiar with FireScope's brand of techno tunes, there isn't much different going on here. This is a lane Steve Rutter's print has firmly made for themselves, and are resolute in adhering to their musical manifesto. Intelligent techno for our doe-eyed gazes into the future, rhythms for cruising interstellar highways, melodies for sci-fi city-scapes. I cannot deny hoping Derek would branch a little more from this, maybe provide a banger, or even an ambient interlude for a more complete album experience, but 'tis not to be. This is a label that still has traditional vinyl as its primary listening format (however many records that may take per release), which will forever lead to LPs being rather tracky as a playback.

Ehgh... I felt icky typing that, but it needed to be said, the little naggy knit in my head demanding it. For as much as I enjoy Derek's Detroit vibes throughout Arrival, I cannot deny it being a bit samey throughout too. For sure there is some difference between the two halves (or both records; or both CDs). If anything, the second part has more rhythmic heft, Haemoglobin providing a nice little trunk-rumbler of a bassline with its spritely melodies and floaty synth sweeps. Droidworld features a funky little bassline of its own in support of an almost melancholic musical lead, while Apollo does a laid-back low-slung shuffle while synth pads and future strings cruise about. Inside Out and MCR get more on vintage Detroit vibes, about what we can expect out of most Derek Carr tunes these days.

If it seems like I'm writing off the first half (sides A & B; disc one), don't get it twisted. I like it just fine, in that I like mostly everything out of FireScope. There's even some fun playfulness in tracks like Alaska Blue and Anoat System. I just felt things picked up when the beats picked up, which gets back to my annoyingly incessant desire for diverse long-players.