| Artist |
| Various |
| Title |
| Recreation X-Display Disobey V2 |
| Format/Cat |
| CD CDV016 |
| Label: |
| Urbcom |
| Style |
| Electronica |
| Date of review |
| July 2006 |
| Reviewer |
| Carl Jenkinson |
| Rating |
| 6/10 |
|
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This double compilation was the brainchild of Urbcom Music, an international label founded by J. Hookens (AKA Jerico One who contributes 5 hard-going tracks here) & Dave Escott (who goes under the alter ego of Awax & who weighs in with 3 easier-on-the-ear numbers). Their remit is a wide-ranging one, incorporating 'harsh post-industrial-powernoise-deathjungle-dubtronics' through to 'ambient IDM gothica, sparky up-tempo dancefloor futurepop & the avant garde' to quote the sleevenotes. Such an 'anything goes' attitude always bodes well & it's encouraging that these artists have been given carte blanche to pursue their own musical visions free of commercial pressures although the fact that the 33 tracks herein concentrate overwhelmingly on the more experimental side, being full of atonal, abstract, experimental soundscapes where rhythm & sound (but little in the way of glitch, luckily) take equal precedence, mean that this is definately not for the uninitiated or the faint-hearted &, like all experimental music, is very much an aquired taste, so much so, in fact, that it can get a bit hard-going with, to pick one prime example, the fractured, fucked-up beats of Jerico One's "Ulackra" acting as a microcosm of just how far into the realms of experimental music this album can go. Not even the collaboration with Alien Six (AKA The Nine's Geoff Pinkney) makes "Stratastate" any more accessable although Geoff's solo piece "C Squared" continues the good work of his Establishing Alpha album. Certain other pieces start promisingly enough but then don't really progress or go anywhere (a problem I've long had with a lot of dance music) & while this doubtless doesn't matter in clubland it does mean that Bionik Phunk's "Supersonic", for example, can lose a lot of its appeal outside of this environment. As my own tastes have never been for such hard-going industrial musics it was pretty inevitable that it's the more accessable tracks that provide the highlights, such as Nebula H & Pangea's solidly danceable "Andalusion" as well as Glenn Love & T.H. Industry's remix of "Iceland", which develops from its initial promise in a pretty accessable manner although the constant addition of new rhythmic & melodic effects whilst remaining true to its initial premise a. Likewise the unexpected ambience of Skorbut's "InZenith" sets a nice, atmospheric counterpoint to most of the other tracks, not least Somantic Reponses' "Omnivox" which precedes it. I have to say that this isn't my sort of thing at all & so any negative connotations that come across here should be taken with that in mind. There's no doubt, though, that Urbcom have plenty to offer the more adventurous listener so if you're willing to go along for the ride to discover what's on the other side & perhaps expand your musical boundaries in the process, then this is the perfect place to start. |
