BEATS with Dan Rule
Published: Music Australia Guide #75, April 2010.
Autechre
Oversteps
****1/2
If there’s a quality that resonates throughout Oversteps – the opaque, warren-like 10th record from sonic futurists Rob Brown and Sean Booth, aka Autechre – it is its deft quiet. While perhaps as compositionally intricate and complex as their work ever has been, this extraordinary collection submerges itself in the duo’s most ambient terrains since 1997 classic Amber. It’s a fascinating shift in palette. Buried shards of synth and echoes of bell-like melodic gestures puncture dense textures and counteract stuttering, asymmetrical rhythmic fragments. It’s engrossing. Following the static abrasions of recent efforts, Oversteps mines the future via a completely new set of tools.
Warp/Inertia
Bonobo
Blacksands
****1/2
The melding of live instrumentation and arrangements into electronic beat structures is a true art form. While the ‘folktronica’ tag of the early 2000s revealed the countless electronic producers willing to try their hand, it also revealed just how difficult it was to get it right. On third album, Blacksands, Simon Green (aka Bonobo) shows us just how it’s done. A record of sweet, sultry atmosphere, Blacksands feeds peeling guitars, strings and woodwinds into crisp, downbeat percussive loops and warm, soulful bass inflections, referencing soul, crystalline jazz, breaks and all between. Indeed, this isn’t a mere collage of converse modes, but a seamless, joyous amalgamation.
Ninja Tune/Inertia
Mantra
Power of the Spoken
****
Local hip hop’s guest-verse go-to-guy, Illzilla frontman Mantra is regarded as the most skilled young MCs around. Suffice to say, the anticipation for the debut solo record has been palpable. Power of the Spoken more than repays the faith. From the brain-bending syntax of its title-track opener, Mantra weaves trademark rapid-fire verbiage over a array of musical moods and styles (courtesy of Mr Savona, M-Phazes, Count Bounce and others). That said, he’s still at his most dynamic when detonating over rugged boom-bap and a little more wouldn’t go astray here. Regardless, the prodigious young MC has delivered a debut of rare light and shade.
Obese
Ben Swire
Frome Here to There
****
From Here to There is a charming statement from San Francisco artist/musician/composer Ben Swire. Fusing understated electronics with tapestries of field recordings, double bass texture and melody, his open sketches evoke rather than invoke, hint rather then tell, create space rather than build structure. It’s a fascinating dance. Over eight unhurried vignettes, Swire gradually reals you in – the pulse of oceanic filed recordings underlaying the burbling instrumentation and percussion – until you’re hooked. It’s a record that resonates with the echo of place and the spaciousness and atmosphere of travel; a record that proves slowly and gently intoxicating.
Preservation/Inertia
Madlib
Medicine Show No.2: Flight to Brazil
***1/2
Though Madlib’s production genius and ear for an exotic hook is unquestioned, it’s hard not to occasionally question his focus. Indeed, LA’s Beat Konducta is prolific in the extreme, churning out more beats, records and mixtape explorations into rare global sounds than anyone else behind a sampler. This edition of Madlib’s Medicine Show is the second of a whopping 12 Madlib longplayers to be released on a monthly basis throughout 2010. As a loose mixtape, it’s an intriguing journey into Brazilian musicality, sifting though funk, psych, tropicalia, free jazz and various obscura. Those wanting to hear an album of Madlib’s deft hooks and wonky, weed-induced treatments, however, will have to wait.
Stones Throw/Fuse
