burger/ink – [las vegas] (1998)

You’d be hard pressed to find a more civilian sounding album than this. [las vegas] plays like a reified traffic-stop and suburban-crawl dreamscape. This is a trip down the road to Target to pick up a new book you’ve only heard good things about. Only pleasure here. No stress of missing a turn or that acrid smoke from the pick-up in front of you turning your eyes red & fiend-like. A real feel-good minimal techno record with beats and textures that’ll make your shoulders shimmy like Kevin Durant.

There are a few nondescript tracks on this one that don’t share the genre-bending leaps into godspace that the highlights have. Filler tracks? Maybe. Record label sanctions? Perhaps. I’ll just stick to the highlights down below.

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“Elvism” catches you emerging from a community pool like a mermaid seductress a la the hottie from Christmas Vacation. The intro sounds like underwater steel drums played by the current itself. The groovy bass comes through about a minute in to get you moving before pebbles start getting skipped across a liquid quartz lagoon in some pastel porcelain cave. Keep in mind these tracks are abstract and so will this review be.

“Flesh & Bleed” fires in next sounding like a cosmic laser gun fight. Dueling green and red sonic blasts firing from 50’s atomic age pistols trade shots to open the cacophony of bouncy blasts that is this song. This is an interesting track in that the drums and melody are sometimes indiscernible lending hand to an encompassing single layer of rhythm and texture. Really groovy beats on this one. 

(image via Doc Atomic’s Attic of Astounding Artifacts)

Next is “Twelve Miles High” coming in at an amusingly dissatisfying eleven minutes and thirty seconds. I may have lied about this album being a totally stress-free exploration of suburbia. This track is tense. Familiar American storefronts and contemporary townhouses are now Bauhaus quadrangles and Brutalist bureau monoliths. Things are intensely neutral and an indistinct paranoia begs you not to talk to anyone. Good track though.

Personal favorite “The Jealous Guy From Memphis” is on the tail end of the album. This track just builds and builds and builds. Every measure adds one more nuance, one more subtlety. Excitement mounts itself like a Neumann pancake stack. An intense headspace of comforting civilian feeling, no images really come to mind with the subdued piano riffs growing like an overdue volcano. The drums just slap concrete floors from long range and you’re fine with it.  Only justice, only pleasure.

Great for getting work done, great for a solo drive through your neighborhood. Minimal techno without a droning sense of doom. Masterful production working as texture – This is [las vegas] from 1998.

Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (1992)

The first time you listen to Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (SAW) you might feel unsettled, not by the artist’s intention but because you’ll be wondering, “Where have I heard these sounds before?”. The sounds of SAW evoke nostalgic memories of late 90’s – early 00’s video games, visions of industrial England and all the time you spent wondering what a rave inside of a drum machine might look like (the ravers in this case being sentient silica components).

Like any self-respecting classic, SAW opens with a hot track ‘Xtal’ which sounds like waking up from a long forgotten dream. Your friends are waiting for you to get in the car so that the night can finally begin. The next highlight is ‘Pulsewidth’ which welcomes you in with reverberating, slapping synths. This is your ticket into the rave. The synthetic bass repeats itself until building into a mini funk solo before the song fades out the same way it opened, letting you know that you’re in friendly familiar hands.

Hot track after hot track! The next track ‘Ageispolis’ is arguably the catchiest song with its cutesy crystalline chimes. Doppler effect synth keys carry the rest of the song. Vaguely mysterious yet catchy, this song foreshadows one of Aphex Twin’s definitive sounds enthusiasts would come to love. A couple of tracks later, ‘Heliosphan’ fades in with rapid fire drums that are surprisingly non-abrasive before cutting the drums to spotlight almost tear-jerking cascading synths.

The final highlight ‘Ptolemy’ is a dance anthem that any respectable disc jockey could really tear up and mix with. The impeccable drums do most of the talking here but the main synth lead shines as well, sounding like a distant car horn harmoniously barking at you and reminding you of the album’s urban British roots.

Aphex Twin A.K.A Mr. Richard David James really does a bang up job on this one, coming onto the British electronic scene and inviting the masses to enjoy some newfangled genre known as “IDM” or Intelligent Dance Music. The sounds on Selected Ambient Works 85-92 would inspire a decade of artists all of whom hoping to create the same rhythmic dance beats through ambient techno roots while capturing charming and almost innocent vibes. A must-listen for fans of electronic music.

Boards of Canada – In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country (2000)

Can music sound dark and childlike at the same time? Sure. Welcome to Boards of Canada’s “In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country”. Coming at us with just four tracks is this concentrated EP of bucolic textures dripping with blue wavelengths, silver train horns and green treelines. In a genre known for its “Intelligent” Dance Music, this IDM piece is all emotion and no thought.

“Kid For Today” opens the show with its pervasive synth melody that feels wide and spread out like jam over whatever landscape this track transports you to. Nuances like the ‘blowing wind’ flanger effect that sounds about 5 layers deep below the surface synth attach vision to feeling. Put yourself in America’s heartland giving witness to a rusted playground decorated with shimmering indigo filters. That might begin to sum up “Kid For Today”.

More shimmers on this next track. The second track “Amo Bishop Roden” plays a teetering act of cold chrome synths played over a ticking clock drumkit that never seems to actually tick forward. A track stuck in time but never growing stale. Something to note here is the track’s title. Amo Bishop Roden was the widow of a rival of David Koresh. This is the same Koresh who lead his Branch Davidian cult to a deadly firefight with authorities in Waco, TX back in ‘93. This theme is explored more thoroughly in the next track.

Third and title track “In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country” is a banger. Not a head banger but really a gorgeous track. The ultimate in mysterio technology. Vocals on this one are beyond robotic and straight brain drilling. Synths sounding like a distant train signaling departure after autumn’s first frost. Boards of Canada combine their peak nostalgic sound with godlike drum progressions to birth this EP’s highlight. Come out and live in a religious community in a beautiful place out in the country.  

Finally “Zoetrope” draws the curtains with cascading cheerful icicles. Wherever the previous tracks took you, it is now time to leave. You can’t help but feel satisfied as the building reverberation amplifies your fondest memories of the last 20 or so minutes. This one feels ahead of its time, like an upbeat minimal techno track you would find in Berlin a decade after this EP’s release.

In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country bridges the gap betwixt Boards of Canada’s foundational classics Music Has The Right To Children (1998) and Geogaddi (2002) as a focused 24 minute EP acting almost as an intermission of the two albums. Sounds from both LP’s can be heard merged into their own signature wavelengths that still enscorcell me after a dozen listens.

GAS – Pop (2000)

This one is a real treat for ambient fans. Best listened to on an overcast midsummer day, this album sounds like a living, breathing forest. Pop features real nature samples recorded in Germany, and simply put, is a unique experience.

Picture yourself going for a walk in unfamiliar neighborhood and accidentally stumbling into a lush, wooded glen. You could turn around and head back the way you came, or, you could go deeper. Pop’s opening track ‘1’ feels like this forest revealing its most picturesque side to you, with sunlight pouring down and birds chirping. You can hear snow melt runoff from the mountains streaming in and gurgling about, bringing life force to all the plants and animals that live within the wooded walls of this forest. The “crispness” of the field recordings really immerses the listener here.

“So you’re still here are you?” Track 2 seems to say. It sounds like Track 1 but as though a shimmering, metallic veneer were placed over it. Track 2 sacrifices the golden sunlit ecstasy of Track 1 for a smoother, more contemplative feel.

Track 3 is where things start to take a turn for the moody. A faint pulse keeps pace throughout the song, letting you know that you are getting closer to the heart of the forest. You have no idea what you’ll find when you get there, but the tone connotes that it’s something you have never seen before.

Track 4 sports a minimalist techno beat and will be an unexpected but welcome change of pace for many first time listeners. The juxtaposition of what sounds like a smith rhythmically hammering his anvil and your previous exposure to an encompassing nature setting feels different but not out of place.

Oh man… you’re lost. Wait maybe this is the wa–nope just kidding. Track 5 is so hypnotic that every time you think you’re heading down the right path, the tone shifts down and the path splits into darker territory. The album’s initial exultation is now a distant memory. This song basically consists of two notes, two synth keys alternating back in forth for what seems like an eternity, still expertly crafted. Fans of William Basinski’s “Disintegration Loops” will feel right at home on this one.

Track 6 is a weak point in the album but provides a necessary set up for the next and final track. In the right setting this track could probably have its moment but as it is, the listener might have a hard time distinguishing anything but an oppressive overtone throughout the song.

Ah you made it. The prize at the end of your journey: Track 7. The thumping bass. The sweeping saws. Truly a masterpiece of minimalist techno, you might be surprised to find yourself bobbing your head after having basked for so long in the ambience of the earlier tracks. While domineering industrial sounds carry the weight on this one, the track still feels like a natural summary and conclusion of Pop.

An unexpectedly successful pairing of industrial and natural sound create a listening experience akin to exploring that forest you have always driven by but never had the time to check out until now. Pop isn’t an every-day-of-the-week kind of album but it can really catch you at the right time and make you appreciate life’s beauty and, boy, what I would give to listen to it for the first time again.