In the early days of EvilSponge, i listened
to a lot of electronic music. I am a huge fan
of the spacey wanderings of The Orb, and
loved their dub with weird samples sound.
But it seemed The
Orb eventually lost the plot, and spacey
ambient music became less common. Drum and
bass, then grime, then dubstep, then ...
"whatever they want to call it this month" all
seemed to take over. Electronic music became
harsher, and that is saying something coming
from someone who listens to Autechre
and also a lot of doom metal...
I just haven't felt that excited by
electronic music in years. Oh sure, there was
the dub of Loscil,
like The
Orb's ambient excursions stripped of the
whimsy but keen for deep wandering listening.
But it's been a while since something really
grabbed my fancy.
But 4n_Objx (pronounce it
"foreign objects") by Gryphon Rue hits me like
late 1990s ambient techno. It's all deep bass,
strange beats, random sounds, and even quirky
samples (the song World's Fastest Talking
Man is based around mangled samples of
an auctioneer...). The music is sample heavy,
echoed to hell and back, chaotic, and
whimsical, which to be honest makes this
record a fun listen.
There are ten songs in just under forty
minutes here, but let me go over a few moments
that I really like.
Rake's Progress is the most
aggressively Orb-like tune
here. The rhythm is a sort of meandering beat,
and over this bass wavers and sounds come in
and out. I can see the head-bopping rhythm
owing a debt to Dr. Patterson. The sauntering
track Shibboleth is made up of odd
noises, including some kind of whooshing
sound. All of the noises work together to make
a beat, and again I reminded of The Orb.
On the other, Alluvials reminds me of
Astralwerks' Excursions in Ambience
series. It's tinkling keyboardy stuff with odd
layers floating in and out. It's spacey fun.
In general this album is fun. Gryphon Rue has
some very interesting ideas, and I like the
execution. Fans of mellower electronica will
want to check this out.
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