We liked the 6 track EP back at the beginning of 2006. The full album is 16 tracks and 64 minutes of equally varied, interesting and highly listenable material. The last review scratched around for comparisons and reference points - as if that was ever the main point of listening to new music. But here we have something that, if you have enjoyed TOM WAITS, SQUAREPUSHER, ADEM, G LOVE, TOM VEK, SOUL COUGHING, BILLY JENKINS or any combination of the seven that most immediately come to my disordered mind, then I think you should investigate via the Alternative Blueprint label. Tracks to be plundered, I believe.
Lawrence Gill is the talent. He has a soulful jazz hip hop voice (outstanding on "In At The Deep"), a fluency on a range of instruments and a deft touch with the sequencing, cutting, pasting and producing. Open syncopated rhythms and resonant real drum sounds connect the tunes together and lift the whole thing way beyond background doodling. Solo work can so easily disappear into the infinite spaces of the artist's inner ear - Gill keeps a strong sense of the people who might be wanting to listen. He turns to face us as the tracks take shape, and gives us tugs of shifting beats to stimulate the aural palette.
There are echoes of world music throughout the album. A little New Orleans in "Ice-o-lator", a shimmer of Brazil in "Universal Proportion". Variation is the key word. Moods are everywhere, but it is distinctly not mood music. The title gives the game away - it’s music to listen to, to dedicate some time to. It is polite enough not to batter itself into he foreground if you want to leave it playing behind some other kind of social/personal event. But it stands up to line-by-line attention at a musical level.
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There are songs here. They have lyrics, but I didn't find myself particularly drawn in by the words themselves. They seem to me to be there for their sound qualities rather than their literal meanings. "Exploder" is a good example. It starts with a very laid back, slurred sort of line "You … you will see yourself explode", followed by a back-of-the-throat howl and some unintelligible follow-up that doesn’t really matter, given the sinister feel that's rapidly building up in the layers of instruments, forest and animal sounds being pushed into the mix. "Annihilation" and "I can’t take the tension" are words that come and go, but the music (bass is especially rich on this one) grabs 90% of the attention , and that's what this album is all about. It’s complex, irrational, moody and funky.
I like it.
www.alternativeblueprint.com
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