alias - muted
computers have revolutionised the whole world of recorded sound. this is a well known fact. on the whole this is definitely a good thing. and when people with low budgets and high ideas can realise the sounds in their heads and get an album out that a few years ago would never have seen the light of day then this too is a good thing.
when i worry is when worlds collide. how do we the listener put the resultant sounds into its right place on the shelf. people like me like to be able to pidgeon hole the music we fill our lives with. they like to be tribal. hiphopheads,technofreaks and downtempo dopedudes at the same party.if this were to happen then this album would be a fine soundtrack for the comedown section of the grouphug.
hip-hop beats and weird ambi-techno sci-fi sonics.
this is predominantly an instrumental affair (muted .. geddit), and so it can suffer at times from it becoming aural wallpaper, but this doesn't set in until much later in the album, but prior to that we have the glorious melodies of 'sixes last' with its far off white noise ambience, looped birdtype noises before dropping into a seriously deep and low bassy beat that rips the woofers. wonderful. massive attack meets aphex twin.
opening track with a spoken snippet all reverbed and then the lp drops into a glorious run of tracks providing the overall feeling of general wonderment.
opening track is followed by eastern ambience and more scratchy samples, distorted far away beats. a real contender for fulfilling the desires and hopes for the genre tagged trip-hop.
alias has not created a lame set of downtempo songs with nice mellow vibes instead there is a serious sense of disorientation and discomfort induced. none more so in the coldcut type 'again for the first time' which once it set its loops and moods the listener is lulled in and just when settled then a major lefthand turn is swerved around and its a completyely different track this then becomes a pattern which is repeated often ... basically this is alias's way of keeping you on your toes.
no slacking at the back there. pay attention. dont chillout too much .. cos you got to hear these noises and beats.
3 tracks in and so far so stunning.
'unseen sights' - a heartwarmimg vocal line (markus archer factfans) makes this a sublime collision of laptop scattershot beats and acoustic pluckings .. with a wonderful feeling of lost loves and mellow vibes.
damn this. i didn't want to gush again
and so it goes on, the beats clash and crunch, the melodies appear momentarily before being whisked away for something more diverse. though 'full circle blues' follows the path of ambience and doesn't scare. warm. bassy. and very very lovely. future sound of london could learn a lot from this.
this is truly refreshing stuff.
word of warning, this album requires your attention, headphone music for beat headzzz. dont put this on and wonader off doing chores as you will not pick up the subtleties contained within the detail. and as we know .. god is in the detail.
i will admit though that towards the end the feeling of deja vu starts to appear as the loops collide and the synths do their thing. alias sounds that the last few tracks were created on autopilot and dont have the same ear grabbing moments, but having set up the previous 45 minutes then forgiveness is easily given.
blinding stuff.