"excellent...needle pricks of the
machine...startling counterpoints...ambient acupuncture
of the highest order" The Wire
PANTUNES MUSIC /
IN SEARCH OF THE SURFACE NOISE
"...magnificent example of what it
is the future of electronic music has to offer..., for
forward thinkers only" The GuestList
"In Search Of
The Surface Noise grabs the lobes from its first elusive
breakbeat and maintains a vice-like hold on your
attention" i/e Magazine
"Pantunes
Music favour needlepoint rhythms, beats played by
knitting needles" The Wire
"Most
inviting" Under The Volcano
VARIOUS / CHINESE
WHISPERS
"...it has
its philosophical precursor in the likes of Jacques
Derrida's Glas, in which he sampled Hegel and Genet
alongside each other and looped the text around so you
started the book as you finished. Chinese Whispers'
cinematic equivalent is in the arch sampler Tarantino's
Pulp Fiction" The Guardian
" ... it's
often impossible to discern the starting point (hence the
name of the exercise) in any of the mixes, yet there is
still a carefully crafted sense of continuity. ... The
album works both as a fine exposition of contemporary
electronica, and another investigation into remix
culture." Motion
"...
stereolab did a song someone else mixed , then some one
else, then....you get the idea.....then stereolab mix it
again...you get to hear all the mixes in between."
Roughtrade
"A kind of
musical game of tag played with a set of samples
originating with Stereolab, passed through various
remixers' studios before finalre-assemblage at the hands
and sampler of Tim Gane and Andy Ramsay, Chinese Whispers
brings a certain novel structure to the usual lack of
methodology inherent in the remix album."
Frequency
"Chinese
Whispers is the game where a group of people pass a
message along, privately one to one, resulting in a
vastly different, and often humorous result. " Chris
Twomey, Exclaim
PUPPY /
HORIZONTAL
"...it's all
dark stuff, but shot through with subtle, beautiful
melodies and riffs, and underpinned with constantly
changing rhythms. Puppy (aka David Hodgson) is clearly a
big talent, but not a happy bunny." The Sunday
Times
"It's the
monstrous sound of urban breakdown... " Ministry Magazine
"Puppy locks
you in for a long sight-filled ride that won't let you
drift off too far from your seat." Interface
"Existing
somewhere between Nonplace Urban Field's Ghosttown
Electronica and the more angular fringe of the Electro
revival, Horizontal bypasses the twin obsessions of
recent leftfield ectronic music. Amplifying neither sonic
minutiae nor burried connections to the 80's golden age,
Puppy (aka David Hodgson) aims for a middle ground
between the two by extracting both groove and detailed
texture".
"...blurry,
deranged squeezebox sounds and devious Latin percussion.
Think of a more clunk, plaintive PLUG with weird droid
basslines, and Brazilian rhythms. Nana Vasconelos has
been captured by PlayStation robots and hidden in a lego
castle. See if you can find him." The Wire
"This is the
strategy of revenge and turning the virus of everday
noise back upon itself."wReck thiS meSS on Radio Patapoe
97.2 * Amsterdam
"Me Shape is
an eccentric clamour of unfamiliar electronics built up
into rhythmic compositions like towers of Legos. ....
Quirky and hyper, Pyke blends coutless layersof loops
into one organized frenzy. Freeform is slowly collecting
his due recognition." Ben Diller. Interface v.16
"... the
programming is slightly less convoluted and bewildering
than the free-associative anti-rhythms that pepper the
impressive Freeform back-catalogue, the synth textures
bubbling above it are even more succulent and satisfying
than usual. Pyke shapes melodies the way. Jackson Pollack
paints - with gooey spatters of metallic tones and drippy
synths. The mingling of rich, tuneful substance, wayward
and weird tonalities, and diffused Afro-Cuban percussive
spasms actually places such Freeform frolics as "Arial
Automatic," "Gni," and "Tangle" in league with the
far-gone-and-out jazz of the Art Ensemble of Chicago or
Sun Ra's Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy." Motion
" Pyke... ,
continues his own style of chunky polyrhythms and
deranged melodies with ME SHAPE, his most cohesive output
to date." Interface Magazine v.15 (July/August,
1999)
"Freeform
fits in somewhere between Bola and Autechre, brings
somewhat more funk along as for example in Munchogram or
Foil. Other tracks go deep into mysterious and vague
rhythm and ambient things. Sprawl brings this fine album
with perfect experimental listening stuff!" forcefield
"The clanking
beats and spooky astral synths of "Yours Sincerely" have
echoes of DJ Spooky, but the standout track of the album
has to be "Munchogram" which sounds uncannily like Mouse
On Mars." Flip Side Review 5.5.99-18.5.99
"... no-one
can accuse Simon Pyke (aka Freeform) of selling out to
the cheesemongers, the clank-clank and 'piffle-wiffle'
swooshes tire and grate after a while, placing Freeform
in the same bracket as Autechre and Mu-ziq, as worthy
avant garde musicians but hardly easy listening. This
said, there are some beautiful moments here" Ministry May
1999
" Assembled
from the now-usual urban sprawl of sounds which make up
the inspiration for much of Electronica's current output,
Me Shape is Simon Pyke's contribution to the clockwork
maelstrom which characterises this apect of late Nineties
music, and of which The Sprawl Imprint and club
areparticular exponents." Richard Fontenoy FREQ Music
E-Zine FREQ
Music E-Zine and Rough
Guide to Rock
SI-{CUT}.DB /
RATE OF LIVING
"rhythmic
soundclashes and out-there melody crunch against each
other in true Aphex style... worth checking" Muzik
"leftfield
stuff for sure...Rate Of Living does prove surprisingly
enjoyable, melodic and even quite danceable in places. It
takes real talent to come up with something so strange
yet likeable" Future Music
"... (the)
rhythms are snappy...an emphasis on childlike
colours...touching on chill out style melancholy or clean
lounge flavours" The Wire
"Rate of
Living" on Sprawl is si-{cut}.db is Doug Benford who has
recently worked with Scanner [Bovine Revolver] here
putting jazz to drum and bass and electronic minimal
blips to forge yetanother hybrid of new musics to melodic
kinetic and frenetic effect." WreckThis Mess on Radio
Patapoe 97.2 * Amsterdam
For some
electronic musicians, combining alluring melodies with
intricate rhythmic patterns offers the highest challenge.
Count si-(cut).db (aka Douglas Benford) among this
idiosyncratic lot. While not as frenzied as the work of
Sqaurepusher or Aphex Twin, Benford's music does share
each's adventurous beat programming and tendency towards
sweet tunes. Rate Of Living falls into thenetherzone
between armchair techno and drum & bass, which I
guess puts into the IDM category. Benford has clearly put
much thought into these 13 compositions, and the result
is an album that reveals new nuances with each play".
Dave Segal, Alternative Press
Since pulling
up stakes and abandoning the Suburbs of Hell, Douglas
Benford has set up shop at the intersection of Blip,
Bleep, and Glitch. The annual block party finds him
tipping back punch in the company of O.S.T., Bisk,Hab,
Solvent, and Atom Heart, noisily exchanging soundfiles
and DSP plug-ins the way hausfraus fuss over guarded
recipes. ... Benford's most conspiratorial computer-aided
anti-designs and programmed machinations only manage to
bend them into amazing shapes." Grooves
"...
impressive credentials...thick full of melodies...complex
off-kilter rhythms that keep a going....sounds like
Autechre. Inventive and original." FAQT (US)
"Noodle-doodle ambio beats and
noise fest that tootles and parples merrily, making your
head feel funny." Melody Maker 21.8.99
"...full of
catchy micro-global orchestrations & tweaked
electro-beat landscapes, executing all the moves you've
now come to associate with creative post-dancefloor
production. Recklessly eclectic & therefore
completely worthwhile. Kudos." Forced Exposure
"... an
intriguing collection of drum n' bass inspired beats and
quirky melodies with a charm all of it's own"
Footloose
"...beat
trickery....intricate beats....organic melodies, provide
a modern tapestry that can be quite absorbing. Groovy
accesible electronic mutations" Flipside
"abrasive
muzak comparable to To Rococo Rot" Magic Feet
"I've been
playing si-{cut}.db's "Rate of Living" on "repeat" mode
today as it continually propels itself into area's i
never thought IDM would enter: Weird & mysterious
sounds, melodic bits and pieces of chaos, and an
ultimately smooth yet coherent piece of work to date.
Sounds range from synthesized electronica to dubby-jazz
extracts and odd twitches of abstract (almost live)
drum's pouncing in several directions with subtle ambient
spurts here and there. .. "Pietro, IDM
"symbols
never did µ-ziq any harm...as dance producers grow
up more of this wierdy electronica is going to be
trundled out....explaining the weirdly tuneful breakbeat
here, kind of Luke Vibert meets Spooky...only the most
tight fisted would deny that there's talent here"
Ministry
"... the best
Sprawl-release so far" Intro (Germany)
OSYMYSO / WELCOME
TO THE PAILINDROME
"Clever and
conceptual....gleeful electronica. Sharing partial
aesthetics with the likes of People Like Us and Mr
Scruff, Nicholson arranges these sound-bites into
funny/funky cut and paste collages that are under-scored
by a compelling sense of absurdity." David Hemmingway,
Alternative Press
"...very very
clever assemblage of samples, and intricate collage of
sonic snippets which creates a bigger picture of the
world as something between a cheeky sham and an insane
post-Dada mess." WreckThisMessRadio100
"Cohesive and
listenable....witty fun and musically adept..." Future
Music
"... good
stuff for lovers of too weird shit." forcefield
"Osymyso
combines a Monty Python sense of humor with hipswaying
beats on Welcome To The Pailindrome; everything from
spoken word records to dog food TV advertisements get
chopped up with the rhythms and its damn fun." Andrew
Duke Cognition/In The Mix
"weirded out,
distorted sample-fest of space disco" Pietro
IDM/Grooves
"if you like
your dance with a big grin, this comes highly
recommended" Birmingham Post (dance CD of the of the
week)
"Osymyso -
'The Not Quite The Fool' (Sprawl). It's one of those
tracks that sounds like there are a million and one
things going on at once yet it somehow manages to make
sense" Steve Lamacq's Record Box (BBC Radio 1)
BBC Radio 3
Mixing Album of The Week
"A Dog A
Panic In A Pagoda (taken from the album 'Welcome To The
Palindrome') is a track I've been playing for the past
couple of weeks, which is very funny if you have a sick
disturbed sense of humour like Chris Morris, of whom I'm
a great fan. 'Welcome To The Palindrome' is a whole album
of cut-ups and brained beats." Annie Nightingale (BBC
Radio 1)
