An album of ambient drone on Kranky will either be enough information to send you straight to sleep or have you salivating at the mouth, dependent on your inclination. I don’t know anything about Ethernet and it doesn’t really matter whether they live in an aluminium teepee in an abandoned mine or in a large inflatable cow at sea because you’re not buying them or their backstory but an album. So the next time you read some ponderous article about some “hot new favourite’s” tragic life or rags to riches story, maybe you should question why they’re talking about that and not the music.
As far as this album goes I’m relatively happy to recommend it. It’s very minimal (sticking to stock in trade tools such as sythns that have been reverbed/sustained to infinity and barely noticeable kick drums that make you feel like you’re back in the womb ) but by no means featureless. It’s by turns warm and hazy (“Monarch”) and slightly sinister (“Correction”) but it sticks to the rules throughout. The rules ? Why yes, the rules as established on brilliant albums like Luke Slater’s “4 Cornered Room”, Global Communications “76:14”, Budd and Eno’s “The Pearl”, Deathprod’s “Morals and Dogma” and even KLF’s “Chill Out” (to some extent). The rule being that an ambient album should never suddenly decide to freak you out or throw in a guitar solo (except in the most gentle of ways) because (let’s face it) if you’ve bought an album of beautiful ambient music you don’t want to be challenged, you probably want a hug. Or a bong. Oh and I awarded this album a slightly higher score than I would normally have because the last song is called..…”Dodecahedron”.
65,000 Dodecahedrons
http://www.brainwashed.com/common/htdocs/discog/krank173.html
Kim Monaghan
