As if this was what mainstream music was like in 1999. This reached number 1 in the UK album charts and was nominated... for a Mercury Music Prize. It’s another album I regularly listen to and have loved over the decades.
Two tracks were featured on separate Guinness adverts, further cementing their wide appeal. What has happened to people’s taste for electronica?
It’s a fantastic example of 90s-00s electronica, with elements joining each track, making a seamless flow of music without being mixed in the club sense.
Sonically it’s incredible. Layered and full of complex samples from other genres, woven into spacey, deep, dark and twinkly tracks. Double Flash, for example, is so chugy. It’s straight up peak time techno which could hold its own today in Berlin today. El Cid on the other hand is delightfully dreamy and a prime example of how electronic music can be beautiful.
It’s another album orchestrating why I love electronica. show more
This is one of a few albums which shaped my listening taste at an early age. It endures in my frequented listening from... 2001 when it was released. Hands down it is why I love electronica. It manages to meld together an array of genes while sounding both of its time and still fresh today.
Poor Leno, for example. Who thinks about including a massive tape delay on a timpani snare on a jacking house track? This draws away from what could have been a cheesy track by adding such an interesting sonic texture above the driving bassline. It’s the chords in the organ though which bring this track full circle, from disco back into its soul roots.
Royksopp’s Night Out cements this album almost into The Darkside of the Moon territory. The ghostly sounds of the intro fade away into an incredible sonic explosion of a tech house track.
This album is why I love synths. Their virtuoso use of modular synths is shown on In Space, where they pair an arpeggiated bassline with a harp melody without it appearing like two instruments.
Every time I’ve listened to this album for kber two decades I have heard something new and exciting. Something which relates to the music I am listening to at that time and also to the styles I’ve always listened to. A true timeless album. show more
I can’t recommend this album enough. It fits into a narrow niche of harmonic, melodic and groove-laden techno which is rarely seen in... album form. Harmonic tech, perhaps. Like a good concept album each track tells their own story within the album’s sonic narrative.
Take 10405 (Alice), for example. The first breakdown build feels like looking down on the beating heart of a club from above. The driving bass and kick like the stomp of feet and swaying shoulders, the astro-high strings holding you up watching the clubbers united in dance. Earnest Kelly feels like connecting with the music on entering a stage at a festival: like the music makes your mind think of the shapes that fit to the shapes your body is already thinking about throwing. Before you know it you’re caught up in the flow of the rhythm, letting your body be glided by the beat of the club.
All harmonic tech is innately jazzy in some respect. From sneaking around the semitones, funk-derived baselines or stripped down disco cuts with tight drums. This album nurtures all of that good stuff into a wonderful sonic journey. show more