Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Gindofask - Octogen (Soma)





Time has caught me unawares and I completely forgot about this. I should have posted it when I got back from my holidays but laziness and events, Pete's wedding last weekend, conspired against me in a whirlwind of stunning inefficiency. Anyway, better late than never. This little beauty has been out for almost a month now. Congratulations if you get anything from this piece of cosmic gibberish.

Terrible isn't it? I've practically forgotten about this blog. I was up at Pete's wedding last weekend, and it's been a c


Title: Gindofask
Artist: Octogen
Label: Soma
Genre: Sparkling Synthetic Tech Funk

The follow up to "Twofiveonine" was always going to be much scrutinised and difficult to judge in isolation and if I'm really honest, and I am, I find the meat and potatoes of "Gindofask every bit as engaging, if not moreso, as its predecessor. It does feel more like a sideways move than a foreward one though but it's a very positive parallel development by which Mario Berardi reveals another facet or two of his character.

I'm not going through all of the tracks because I think what I've got to say about those that follow will cover those which are absent. This is an impressionistic review that will hopefully leave the listener to fill in the blanks.

"Square Bells" & "Sphyxomite" this collections appeal is in its total embrace of the synthetic. Something ememplified in the opening "Please Intro Password" which is an exercise in deadpan kitsch. "Cyber Technological Flying Machine" is coldweather north European. "The Journeyman" . . .melancholic bittersweet bleeps in the void. "Ploughs And Clouds" is straight-up Detroit and rivals the motor city in evocative intensity. "The Emperor's Apprentice Pt 1"? R2 D2 is all I have to say. For "Saturn Sun" read "Ploughs & Clouds" with imrov. Space jazz with lovely electronic flourishes. "The Emperor's Apprentice Pt 2" is all hydraulic jacking and crisp bass and crackling relics of radio contact.

A complementary collection of shimmering machine funk to "Twofiveonine." The aural equivalent of a geode.

No comments: