- Thomas Melchior's dry-as-dust minimalism is put to the side as Cinderfella LTD, giving the veteran room to explore other concerns. On Witch Doctor, that means Melchior pursues broader ideas, like the hypnotic power of techno. "The Spell," the A-side attraction, is 13 minutes, and it inches every element ever so slowly into the mix, making it appear as if they'd always been there. It makes for the most boring and engaging listening possible, depending on your perspective, but it goes down famously on dance floor's uniquely primed for tracks that sound like they might just go on until the end of time.
At nearly half "The Spell"'s length, both "The Undoing" and "W.T.B" don't quite work in the same way. "The Undoing" does so deliberately, though, using many of the same elements in a more muscular way, leaving out the tribalized percussion, leaving only a shadow of the A-side, something literally reflected in the desiccated melody. "W.T.B," meanwhile, has a stocky bassline that's neither funky nor unfunky enough to kick things off. As a result, it takes plenty of time to grab your attention. At slightly less than six minutes, you get the sense that given some more room to breathe, it could have gotten somewhere interesting. Instead, you're left thinking WTF by its end.
Tracklist A The Spell
B1 The Undoing
B2 W.T.B