Good review; hopefully this isn't slept on.

Great review for an excellent album deserving of attention.

my copy needs to hurry and get here!!! so fantastic!

Lovely little LP, this.

not bad!

essential indeed

The Groove!

Cool piece of record!

Sounds really interesting, Will be picking this one up soon.

i like it..

I'm into this.

I come here to get new ideas for music. Not read some meandering bullshit stream of consciousness review. SPIN, of all places, does it right:

'Lo-fi but deeply engaging, SF producer's dusky debut balances gummed-up techno and crumbling ambient.'

So you want a simplified, buzzword-heavy, boilerplate review with no personal insight, no creative impulse, and no sense of scope? I agree, reading someone trying to write with a sense of passion and a depth of understanding about new, interesting music doesn't give me new ideas for music either.........

I don't come here for lit major 'creative impulse' reviews. I come for the music.

P.S.
You know you're doing something wrong when 5 paragraphs in, I still have no fucking clue what the album sounds like.

succinct...maybe you should give the album a listen then...after all, isn't that is the only way to ever really know what it sounds like?


#facepalm

lol, butthurtness.

'Lo-fi but deeply engaging, SF producer's dusky debut balances gummed-up techno and crumbling ambient.'

All that needs to be said. I come here for the music, I assume that's why we're all here, to learn about new music.

I don't want to have to read a 5 paragraphs of abstract poetry and trendy buzzwords and meaningless bullshit to get the gist of whether this album is worth pursuing.

If that hurts your widdle feewings, sorry.

I agree with Succinct.

'Still, everything is sketch-like, more concerned with exploring the potential of the materials to hand rather than serving any external function. '

LOL, get tossed.

I have stuff to do, crawl up your own asshole if you want, how about a nice sentence summary before you take that line of yay and go nuts with the thesaurus, mate?

While there's something to be said for forthright appraisal, I'd take five paragraphs of abstraction over a single-sentence plug.

False dilemma. Listen, I don't mean to squat on someone's art. Sorry. Or disparage the work someone put into this piece. I'm just sayin'...a brief summary, to tell me whether I should even read any further...then go nuts! Anyone can blow a few zoinkers and rattle off pages of interesting analysis of a CD.

That's cool.
But before you do, an INTRO would be nice. And conclusion.


Just my pissant idea.
Not a Art - Critic - Journalist, so...

Yah, I too may have come off a little harsh. Sorry.
Still think it's a brilliant idea though. And really, *what the world needs now*. With more and more information flooding us from every window, we need soundbites. At least to know what to further investigate. I see a long, hazily articulated article...and I just loose interest in the album. There's a dozen others to check out! No time! No time!

So anyways, where I'm coming from.
Sorry to be such a prick. Pardon me.

Carry on.

I don't know what you guys have been reading (smoking?) but the whole review is about what the album sounds like. Plus, would it really hurt to click on the sound clips below the review to know 'what it sounds like'?

Elements drift imperceptibly across the grid

How do you know? They are imperceptible, right? What grid and what does it consist of? What are these elements and what do they consist of? What does any of it sound like? I come from a generation raised on NME's and Melody Makers. The least you could expect was some idea what a single or album sounded like without recourse to a brief sound-clip. In which case, the 'single-sentence' plug quoted above is singularly more successful than the lazy, badly written sprawl that comprises this review.

I understand, but online magazines don't serve as consumer guides so strictly anymore-they don't help people decide whether to buy something so much as they encourage them to preview music (and then decide). And that's convenient.

In some ways, I think YouTube, file-sharing, etc. have outmoded the sort of succinct reviews found in older magazines, and I wouldn't be surprised if RA consequently felt pressured to offer people a bit more (fluff), so to speak. Whatever your thoughts on this particular review (yes, it is vague; no, I don't know "what the grid consists of"), I think you'd agree that the role of the reviewer has changed in some significant ways, for better or for worse.

What are these 'significant ways' in which you reckon the critic's role has changed then? I am not being cheeky, simply wondering, because it is not clear from your post. What has YouTube got to do with critique? Is it not simply a less personable form of word-of-mouth? File-sharing. What has that got to do with the grand old art of reviewing?

Oddly, I disagree entirely with your statement that online magazines 'don't serve as consumer guides so strictly anymore'. The modern NME is a consumerist whisper of it's former punky, gobby, opinionated self. It never used to be a 'consumer guide' at all in fact. In it's naive idealism there was reason to love. Even the likes of Pitchfork give off a massive insecurity. They want to be loved rather than making us love what they love.

Simply, I felt this was a poorly written, intellectually unrigorous review, the author of which commited the cardinal error of underestimating his readership's collective grey matter. Or possibly not even caring - which is substantially worse.

I only meant that YouTube and file-sharing are two means by which samples are made readily available and easily distributed. I don't necessarily need to be told that this is "gummed-up techno and crumbling ambient" when I can visit Public Information's Bandcamp page and discover this myself. And, no, I suppose the aim of criticism has not changed fundamentally-I spoke rashly. (Cannot comment on NME.)

Wow, I really like that two brand-new RA members got hot and started ripping the reviews right off the bat. Welcome aboard, guys!

"What grid and what does it consist of?"

Techno, bro.

1) I am not going to start every review with a one sentence precis, let's save that for Which? magazine

2) I meant the rhythmic grid

TODAY!! , Disappearing stars Ep. just in today www.beatport.com/release/disappearing-stars/949315 A diverse blend of deep house and street techno with an edge, a soundtracky feel with a deep bassy groove along with a heads down straight face pulling remix by matthew burton 4 tracks with 2 originals by Luke Black and 2 remix's by matthew Burton and matthew Burton and Luke plz check it out. thanks x

you guys

I want more poetry and personal reflections in the reviews I read!!! If I want to know how somthing sounds like I can (with 95 % certainty) just google the name of the release and listen to the sound clips. Exactly as someone else probably (sorry didn't read the whole thread) has already said.

I have never understood why reviews of records (not of gear etc.) should work as some kind of consumer guide where the music is described in an objective manner. To me it's much more interesting to read what the reviewer felt when he or she listening to the record. Rather than to read about what kind of filters, delays, machines bla bla bla were used and to what extent it sounds like Theo Parrish anno 2002.



I

For some 'gummed-up techno and crumbling ambient' can be as cryptic and annoying as, presumably, this review. Each writer will chose a different way to describe sounds. Words. Deal with them.

Bare people whining on RA thread shock/ horror. Regardless, this fucking album is doing the rounds on my system, im feeling it.

This is immense!

Dub techno, Techno y experimental es el plato perfecto !! mm mM m

QUOTH ANDYWELT: 'I have never understood why reviews of records (not of gear etc.) should work as some kind of consumer guide where the music is described in an objective manner.'

super otm

Like 'Shut In', the rest is dime a dozen 7-minutes-of-an-atonal-absynth-texture-i-just-came-up-with-aren't-i-clever, ala the last million records to get a 4 on RA.

Marvellous record - certain sections remind me of the more ambient bits Speedy J's work on Novamute.

How the hell did this go unnoticed in the end of lists???