6/10
There are many instances in contemporary music, when something completely spontaneous becomes an industry standard, for better or for worse.
New Order basically creating a dance floor anthem off the back of a demo recording with drum machines.. A wrongly configured auto tune track turns into a recording effect, a legendary guitarist plays a bar out of time (Black Dog). The next thing you know, guitarist are playing half a bar behind the drummer for effect.
These things are the spur of the moment, but musicians adopt these because they like them so much and want to see how they sound on their own records. Producers and engineers will ask for, "more autotune", give me that "gated drum sound".
The problem with some of this is, there is a fine line between homage and walking cliche.
No more is this conundrum present than in electronic music.
We have the new Machinedrum release HUMAN ENERGY. Travis Stewart has been operating under this pseudonym for best part of 17 years now. While a lot of his recordings I have enjoyed thus far, this release has me feeling like it could of been more.
There's the opening intro track "Lapis", which builds and builds into this epic crescendo of synths. Like most of the other tracks, there are elements of songs I like, but I can never truly give myself over, truly engage in them.
"Morphogene" truly kicks off the album. With the looped vibraphones in the beginning it sounds ethereal, and we have male vocals which are buried underneath squelchy synths and beats. An underwhelming track.
The slow fade in of "Angel Speak" again sounded really cool, and then when the beat cuts in and the mid level saw synths start vamping, I'm virtually lost again. More male vocals murkier in the mix and unintelligible. Being coherent in electronic music isn't a necessity, but all throughout this album I was trying to find something to sink my teeth into, and the vocal cuts simply give anything.
"Do It 4 U" is the best track on here, the intro with the woozy fast attack synth lead is amazing, and the beat is really good. I feel like it is probably the most palatable thing on the album. The gated synth part in the chorus are reminiscent of early house.
"Celestial Levels" carries through artificial string sounds which are very blissful, with a trap beat dropping through. Again nice enough to listen to, but nothing too spectacular.
"Ocean of thought" and "Etheric Body Temple" continue on with the ethereal themes on spirituality. When the tracks are at their most mellow, is when they are the best.
The track I probably disliked the most was the closer "Colour Communicator". The high pitched voices looped at the start were grating, and as the track proceeded it got more and more cluttered with sound. Luckily it is a short track on this.
Travis Stewart uses a lot of overused cliches on this. Some of the sounds are extremely tired and worn out. But it's not to say that it's entirely unlistenable, anyone who is a fan of his other work (Vapour City, Bidnezz, side project Sepalcure) will enjoy this. I couldn't seem to stitch together all of the elements of the tracks with their accompanied songs. It felt like disjointed gratification.
But who am I to say? This release will please many IDM fans out there.
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